He wasn't sure what he was doing here. He rather regretted his choice, it seemed so much worse now that he was here. It was a rough part of town, he knew of it, mostly from the news; Always bad news.
She had been the one that showed up when he agreed to the rendezvous. She was a very stoic character, he had tried to break the ice with her on the car ride over, he never could handle the quiet, but she wouldn't crack. The only times she had talked with him was to assure that if he did this job for them(whoever 'they' were), they'd make his problem go away.
"Break the safe, and all would be smooth sailing." he had to keep reminding himself.
She would have been pretty, if he could have gotten a good look at her. Her long blonde hair was mostly obscured by the hood she kept over her head. He had caught one short glimpse of her grey eyes. But that was about it.
"We're here." She announced as they stopped across the street from an old run-down apartment. Not much to look at, especially now that it was in such disrepair. "I'll go in and make sure there aren't any squatters. I'll call when the coast is clear."
"Right. We wouldn't want them to spoil our fun." He said trying to ease his own tensions.
She scowled as she handed him a pistol. "You know how to use this?"
"Whoa, this wasn't in the agreement."
"Do you, or do you not? I don't need you getting killed out here." She reiterated tersely.
"I've never used one before, no."
She quickly flicked off the safety, and loaded a bullet into the chamber. "Just aim and pull the trigger." As she disappeared into the ghostly building.
The impact of handling the gun set off his anxiety. This was real, and it was very clearly illegal. He had never done anything remotely against the law in his life. Now here he was, pistol in hand, about to break into someone's safe, for what? A few bad loans? The corporations did bad things to those who couldn't pay them off, but it couldn't be worse than assault and robbery could it?
He heard some noises coming from inside. What could she be doing in there? As he continued to play with the gun, now a bit damp from his sweaty palms, his phone rang. "It's clear. First floor, take the second door on the right." *click*
He slowly crept towards the building. He felt increasingly aware of everything around him. Garbage fluttering in the breeze. His shadow a specter under the lamps. A rat ran by, he jumped, "Jesus they're big out here." He slowly went through the door. The creaking almost imperceptible under his heart beating. God, the inside was worse than the outside. The smell on the street was tolerable, in here it was rancid. The garbage was piled along the sides of the hall way, no real way of knowing what the original floor looked like. One light still worked at the end of the hall, thankfully obscuring any other details, which may have caused him to lose it.
Finally in the room, things were a little better. It looked untidy, but inhabited. Mattress on the ground, with crumpled up sheets. A chair by a small table, with some indecipherable writings on it. Very grotesque drawings along side. She was on the other side of the room by a safe. There had been some sort of graffiti on the ground and the walls, all red. It was scuffed up, looked pretty recent, given the liquid on the ground still wet, possibly paint thinner.
"I'll keep a look out. Only grab the manuscript inside the safe. You still have the gun, right?"
Looking down, he still held the gun tightly in his grip. He had completely forgotten he was holding it. Looking back up and she was gone. "Well, let's get to it." He muttered.
An older safe, no electronics, which made it both easier, and more difficult than the new safe's he'd find downtown. Actually shifting a tumbler around? He hadn't had to do that since his training. Most of it now was electronic, like hacking something on the internet, usually needed the work of a quantum processor to push through the possibilities.
His wife had died recently. It was a traumatic experience to say the least, without the pressure it put on him at work, and when the insurance representatives issued the procedure as incomplete, he was now fronted with all the costs of the hospital, the doctors, and whatever else hospitals put in their fine print. It became easier for insurance companies to shirk off deaths with the new laws that had been put in place. Any procedure that ends in death, was no longer the responsibility of these companies. Sure there had been great strides in medicine that significantly decreased the likelihood of death, but hospital costs were enormous. Especially for a working class man like himself.
The final click. He pulled the lever, and felt the weight as it swung open. There was the package she had described, and a curious gold talisman on the bottom shelf, also a top some red paint. He grabbed the package, but he couldn't turn his eyes away from that golden glint. Before he knew what he was doing he grabbed for the talisman, it's cold causing a shiver, no, more like a shake, up his spine.
The red paint seemed to glow for a second before the door across the door shattered open, knocking wood splinters across the room. In the doorway stood a giant creature. A hideous monster. It's terrible appearance was unlike anything he had seen. Crumpled and hanging skin on a muscular frame, long pointed and sharp claws etching into the floor. But the face,some sort of mashed up face with wiry tentacles falling across it's muzzle. Beady eyes glowing orange in the dim light. It bared it's fangs drool dripping.
The gun! He lunged for the gun off to the side of the safe. Right as he leaped for it, the creature was a top of him, he heard the gun go off, this was the end. The weight, the piercing claws digging into his skin. Just waiting for those awful fangs to sink it. Closed his eyes, said a prayer to himself.
A sudden moment, the weight had been lifted from him, as he heard a yelp, looking over to see the monstrous body against the window. He could smell seared flesh, and a smoldering hole in the beasts side. Looking around for the source of this change, he saw her walking calmly towards it, and it struggled to arise. It looked as though her arm was on fire! No, it almost seemed like the fire emanated from within her, you could see a faint outline of what looked like bone. She sent another blast at it's face this time, very clear it wouldn't get up.
"Didn't I fucking tell you not to touch anything?" She reached out her hand to him. He was looking her up and down. What had just happened? In a moment, everything he knew had turned on it's head.
He accepted her hand, and she pulled him up surprisingly quickly for someone her size.
"What else did you get?" She asked, impassively. How had she known he had grabbed anything else? Where did that monster come from?
Thinking back on it for a moment, he wasn't sure. He looked down at it, and brought it up for her to inspect.
"Looks like a keeper. Surprised they only put a hound on something like that."
"What is it?" He asked quizzically.
"Follow me." Was all she responded as she turned to walk out of the room, he grabbed the gun and jogged to catch up to her.
--5/14/2013--Updated 5/19/2013
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