“Great timing, my friend,” he whispered, “but you need to be more aware of your surroundings.”
“What the hell?!” Mr. Holdover said looking around, “How long where you—”
“Shh,” he said again, “They can hear you.”
“WHO' can—” Mr. Holdover abruptly cut himself off, finally realizing the situation.
- Clark nodded, he then suddenly remembered something. “Oh and speaking of which, did you get the stuff from Abbas?”
Mr. Holdover let out a breath, “No. The fucker slipped out when I wasn’t looking.” he kicked the wall. “Dammit!”
“Yeah, he tends to do that.” D. Clark said. “I hear the guy’s quicker than he looks.”
“Fuck this!” Mr. Holdover said. “All this shit, and for what? One fucking paper he was probably gonna wipe his ass with!”
“So you came up here to get the stuff on your own?”
“I mean…pretty much. One of his other Groundhog buddies said I’d find ‘answers’ up here or some confusing shit. This’s become too damn confusing.”
“That’s…weird,” D. Clark said, “Well, it’s a good thing you caught me here then.”
Mr. Holdover eyed him, “Yeah about that, what are you doing here anyways?” he asked him.
“Abbas and Spit-Take are off on errands simultaneously,” he said. He was still scribbling on the image of the street in his notebook. Now he’d added more trash alongside the curb with a few fallen trash cans to give the sketch more depth. He turned the page, showing an array of different instruments in his sketchbook. “It’s a rare opportunity not to have either of those two guarding this place.”
“Tch!” Mr. Holdover suddenly had an uncomfortable feeling in the back of his head. “So I’m guessing you were planning to break too?”
“Whelp, that’s the plan so far.”
“Then why risk getting thrown out now?”
“My friend, I have no home, just different places I choose to sleep every night.” D. Clark adjusted his hair, his eyes becoming somewhat visible—one of them bruised and purple. “Besides, I don’t think Abbas is gonna keep those documents around for much longer.”
“Huh?!” Mr. Holdover said. “So what the hell was the point in getting close then?!”
“I did ask you earlier if you thought something suspicious was going on here.” He said. “Between what’s happened in the past couple of days—well really since you and your party showed up—I believe something’s going down and fast.” He peeked through the crack of the door. “So I’ve been here, plotting, for the past half hour.
Mr. Holdover shook his head, pushing the man aside and stepping ahead. “Stand aside. I’ll be in and out.”
“Oh really? Wow I’m flattered!” he said.
Mr. Holdover stopped, grimacing. “Actually, why didn’t you go in?”
“Good question,” he said. “Groundhogs took precautions and had some extra muscle out there in case someone—it’s probably me—got too nosy.”
He looked over, “What makes you so special?”
The younger man turned back, “Ok, confession time; I’m not really the most liked person down here…actually everyone sorta hates me.”
“Since when?!”
“And they may or may not like to watch me in my free time.”
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“What? You wanna tell me that NOW?!”
“Shh! Shh! Your voice, remember?”
Cursing, Mr. Holdover carefully cracked the door to see the same Sunshine, Johnny, and Sammy patrolling the hall. He scowled, “That explains the extra muscle.”
“That…” D. Clark peeked through, “isn’t normal. Usually those three guard the lower levels, but after the recent code delta they’ve been up here more often.” The man put a finger to the side of his head, ‘I wonder if it has something to do with him…’ he thought to himself.
“Always one fucking thing after another.” Mr. Holdover spat, closing the door. Grimacing, he groaned. “Ok I give up, what’s your plan?”
“Simple.” The younger man held his finger up, “I’m going to run in and make a bunch of nose. In the meantime, you’re going to run in the room while there distracted.”
Mr. Holdover blinked, “Are you fucking FIVE?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh how I wish I still was.” He stepped forward, ripping one of the pages from his notebook, which began to glow. “Now, follow my lead.”
“What the…“ Mr. Holdover said. He tried to stop the man, “Wait—”
‘BAM!’
- Clark kicked the door open, waving at the now surprised three in the hall.
“What’s up what’s up kids!” he said
“What the hell!?” Sunshine exclaimed, “You?”
He held up his paper, “I’ve been drawing again and want your opinion on this piece.” The man young man proceeded to unfold a large piece of paper with a life-size drawing of an electric guitar. He presented it proudly. “Well, what do you think?”
Mr. Holdover’s nostrils flared while his entire head shook and turned red. ‘What…?’
The other three however, seemed more exhausted
“This again,” Johnny said. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to be up here.”
“Which means it can’t be good.” Sunshine replied taking out her water guns, “Hey!” she barked, “Stop right there or I’ll shoot!”
“Shoot? I just wanna express my art.” D. Clark said. “Now, someone give me a song request.”
“For Pete’s sake,” Sammy sighed, “this’s becoming a nightmare.”
“Ah, Nightmare it is,” D. Clark smiled pointing at him, “excellent choice.” Without warning, his hand swatted the image and the strings themselves rattled in a boom of noise.
Mr. Holdover’s eyes budged from his skull, ‘WHAT THE FUCK?!!!’
The first rift alone blasted through the narrow hall, the sound pressure almost knocking the three over. Their hands immediately went to their ears.
“GAH!” Sammy cried, “My EARS!”
“Sunshine!” Johnny, “Any bright ideas before we all go deaf?!”
“WHAT?!” she yelled.
“I said, ANY BRIGHT IDEAS BEFORE WE ALL GO DEAF?!”
“Oh, yeah!” the woman spun the cylinder of her gun with her finger. “SHOW’S OVER!” she yelled, blasting him with a stream of water. D. Clark spun on impact, falling over quickly with an “Oof” sound, his guitar vanishing just as quick.
Sammy let out a sigh of relief, “Thank goodness! I couldn’t take much more of that awful music.”
“Yeah,” Sunshine said walking behind the door he came. She peered behind it only to see nothing, same with the stairs.
“Sunshine,” Johnny said, “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah…think so at least.” She put her guns back in the holsters under her coat and nodded her head in D. Clark’s direction. “Let’s toss him before Abbas finds out.”
Mr. Holdover watched them drag him away from the crack of the door. He shook his head, “I won’t let your sacrifice be in vain,” He said, closing it. Looking ahead, the couch, monitors, and keyboards were all in place. Mr. Holdover went for the couch.
‘Inside…inside…’ he thought. He was about to reach for the dark cushion before envisioning the sight of Abbas sitting on it—for hours at a time…possibly days. He shuddered, ‘Now that I think about it, how old is this thing? Fuck it, let’s get this over with!’
Mr. Holdover shot his hand under the cushion, to which he immediately regretted. It was still warm, soggy and hard substances filled his fingers with a few sharp objects, all while a sour smell began burning his nostrils.
‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck this shit’s nasty!’ he gritted his teeth, digging deeper. He felt even more sharpness from the couch poke his hand. Moving to his left, the smell became stronger, to the point where his eyes burned. Covering his nose with his free hand, he awkwardly shifted his body to the right side, where he hand dig into a wet seeping mess, he could feel his fingers crunch against something at the center. Finally, he yanked his hand out, scrambling as far back from the monstrous piece of furniture as fat as he could slide across the floor.
“The fuck was in that thing?!” he said looking at his hand. It was wet and sticky, with a sweet and salty odor. Slamming it on the floor, the man got up and flipped the couch over, turned it to its side, then shook it violently. But there was nothing. Dropping it, he fell on the couch in defeat.
‘That chain smoker tricked me didn’t he?’ he thought, almost smiling in traumatic response. Then, he felt something weird under him. Realizing he was on the couch, Mr. Holdover jumped off but looked back to where he was sitting.
“Wait a second,” he said. He felt where he was sitting, feeling a square shaped lump within the cushion. “There’s no way…” he said. He tore the cushion open, yanking out the filling until feeling the spiral binding of the notebook. He yanked it out, his eyes in disbelief:
[Jacob 19:52]
“He meant LITERIALY?” Mr. Holdover said, gawking at the badge-yellow notebook. His now sweaty hands shook, the book suddenly became harder and harder to hold. He shot a few glances over his shoulder, the outside sounds growing louder the longer he stood in the vacant room. He knew this was it. This is was he’d been searching for.
‘Yet it seems too good…to be real.’ Slowly, Mr. Holdover opened the notebook anyways.
“Well, here goes nothing.”