Outsider by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh Read Free Book Online

Maybe, just maybe,
the whole sad story had nothing to do with Second Look and Terri
and Dawn were just plain unlucky.
    In the meantime, he felt very glad the
morning rush hour was over.
     
     
    INTERLUDE (By courtesy of the
author Sid Wasgo)
     
    THE BEAST(s)
    (To Terri and Dawn, “Second Look”,
respect)
     
    The two friends would often go for long walks
at night, favouring dark backstreets. Pat, long blonde-haired, was,
and had always been, the sensible one, the wise one, and the great
listener. Gill, wild character with freckles and thick curly hair
falling disorderly down her shoulders, was, and had never tried to
be otherwise, the big mouth, the troublemaker, and an
all-over-the-place kind of person. And they both liked the dark
backstreets for their quietness and the possible dangers that
always made their days and nights. Then, and only then, Pat would
let her composure go, becoming as wild as Gill, and even more
lethal.
    They would walk and talk. Well, Gill would do
most of the talking. Pat would make all the appreciative noises
expected from her, occasionally pointing out the points Gill would
miss almost deliberately, almost checking if Pat was still with her
and not gone on a mind trip to a different planet. But Pat was
always there, attentive and cunning.
    They loved the full moon, even if they didn’t
really need it. The rounder the satellite, the more manic their
behavior. Gill, increasingly bouncier. Pat, more tightly in control
of herself.
    It was such a night. Full moon, huge and
round, filling up the whole sky with the sheerness of its size and
its rings of light. So bright, so mad. They just loved bathing in
its intense light. They felt almighty.
    Cobbles running under the heavy soles of
their New Rock boots. Lampposts hardly lighting the streets. Sounds
resonating fantastically in the silence surrounding their
conversation, Gill’s constantly manufactured diatribes. Tonight she
was on and on about the town policies on parks and playgrounds,
locked up at night, from what? The subject was as good as any.
Especially when walls and fences couldn’t stop them.
    Most of their nocturnal debates were as
pointless as they were enjoyable. They would only stop when Pat
would eventually point out their total pointlessness. Usually
around dawn. She was, and had always been, extremely patient with
her best mate. She knew better anyway than interrupting Gill.
    A flask of whisky passed between them would
add to the sharing and the specialness of the night.
    Gill was rather bouncy, regularly shifting
shapes. Which one was the real one? They didn’t even know
themselves. Pat was more contained. Her eyes were the only things
she could never control. They had gone a dark and shiny black,
intensity and brightness spilling out.
    Gill croaked deliberately loudly before
shifting back to her human shape. She loved this kind of acting
out. She went back to her subject of the night, switching suddenly
to the increasing daily presence of ravens in the aforementioned
town parks and playgrounds. Pat grunted appreciatively. And both
went silent. Their acute sense of hearing had isolated the still
distant sound of a footstep. Like heavy boots. They looked at each
other, Gill with a new, amused smile slowly raising the corners of
her mouth, Pat with an eyebrow rising interestedly. She playfully
made her shoulder joints click. The clicking was not human, even if
she kept her shape. Gill swiftly turned into a majestic red-spotted
green frog the size of a pony and leapt delightedly. Entertainment
was on its way.
    Entertainment? Certainly not the middle name
of the human being approaching them. The frog leapt forward once.
The human being kept approaching. Not taller than Pat. A blue
mohican proudly erect, skulls and daggers bleedingly tattooed down
the right arm, the left arm exhibiting scars, white straight lines
from shoulder to elbow like notches on the handle of a cowboy gun,
and then, two ugly jagged scars down to the wrist.