When monster met man

Part V

David had his worst week of work since getting the job. He told his co workers it was the last remnants of the bug. By the middle of the week, he recognized that something had changed, and by the end he realized that he needed to make a decision.

On Sunday, he thought about church for the first time in years. It would’ve been nice, he thought, to have some place to go to get the answers to his questions. Instead, David went back into the ghetto. He brought along a bag that had his wallet and a change of clothes, but he also kept his teeth hidden behind the top of his zippered jacket, and his hands in his pockets, except for when he knocked.

The place wasn’t difficult to locate. He had the scent, and when it came down to locating which specific house, the area of dead grass and weeds, the rot in the wood and foundation, gave the place away.

Jarvis opened the door and did not look surprised. David wondered if they tracked by scent also.

“What is it that you want?”

David thought about that, about the man’s odd way of speaking. “I want to know who those men were,” he said. “I need to know what’s going on.”

Jarvis observed him for a long moment. Then a longer one. “Wait here.” He left the door open when he stepped away but did not invite David in. He returned in a few moments. When he returned he closed the door behind him as he walked past David, who followed.

“Where are we going?”

“To answer your questions.”

Jarvis had the same familiarity with the bus system that David did, who felt better about not being able to drive. It was a bit strange for people such as them to be taking the bus, but there they were. He didn’t sit next to the larger man. He couldn’t; he told himself it was because Jarvis was so broad.

David thought about the man in the garbage and his fighter of a dog, as the scenery outside transitioned from bail bonds businesses and liquor stores to organic grocery stores and fusion restaurants. The bus took them even further past that, but eventually, when things got too nice, they were back to walking.

David was dressed comfortably, but even if he was jogging his attire would not have been confused for workout clothes. Jarvis looked out of place from head to toe.

“On your left,” the man said, but didn’t stop walking.

David turned his head to look across the street. He saw the gates of a closed community, broad and iron, but beyond it there were several police cars and flashing lights.

“Walter Lancaster,” Jarvis said. “Was a man of great means. He had nothing left to consider in his life but how long it would take for him to die, despite his excess.”

David watched the people passing by in their cars watch the two of them. He thought about the friends of his family. Back on the island, his family was a family of means, but now he was nobody.

“He wanted me to make him what I am,” Jarvis said. “I refused. Walter Lancaster was the kind of man that believed he could control people, because so many things had turned in his favor before.”

“Those men had something to do with that,”

“They were sent by him.”

“Wait,” David said, stopping. “You even killed this Walter Lancaster person?”

This time when Jarvis stopped, he turned around before he spoke. “I did. But not because he asked me, and I refused. Because he was behind the killings.”

David was struck again, the itch in the back of his throat had returned. He didn’t want to vomit, more, he could feel the rage clawing up his esophagus.

Jarvis held his stare. It was particularly effective because the man never seemed to blink. “Were they normal killings, I would have abided, but he designed them to call out to me. In doing so, he was attracting the attention of others.”

David had wanted his father to be wrong, about so many different things. Everything. But no, there was something wrong about Jarvis. In Jarvis. The stench was there, too, but something let him pull back on the leash. “So you killed him because he threatened,” and David looked around, trying to see all of Charm City, or at least understand what it was.

“Yes,” Jarvis said. “What would you do with forever?”

David picked his head up, but Jarvis was already walking away.

“So now you know. There are those in this city who know of us, and our character. Some are like us, similar, but different. Something about this place attracts them.”

David spun a slow circle, in the present and in the past. He wondered back through every conversation and interaction, for clues to separate the bystanders from the ones Jarvis spoke of, the Walter Lancasters.

When he caught up to Jarvis again, he was back at the bus stop, waiting. David wondered how long the other man had had to come to grips with the things that David was wrestling with. And even then, how had he.

“Do you know of any others, any similar others?”

“I know of many,” and Jarvis stared down at David. “But I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

David watched, as Jarvis spoke. His chest was inert. His words did not disturb the air at all. It was almost as if he were moving his lips and thinking his thoughts loud enough for David to hear. He wasn’t alive.

“I don’t know people.”

David said nothing. He waited with Jarvis in silence. And when the bus came, he boarded in silence, and sat in silence. David’s stop came up first. On the ladder of society, Jarvis’ residence was nearer the bottom, as close to the bottom as Walter Lancaster’s was to the top.

“Would you mind if I came by, every now and again?” it was the question David had been saving up all his energy to ask. He had never met anyone he could use the term us with.

“Do as you wish,” Jarvis said.

David nodded. It was a cold response, but it was also a consistent one. He left the bus, and watched as it rolled off toward the Barrow. That was the first on the list of places his co workers told him not to go. There were places residents described as the ghetto, but the Barrow was a specific place, a bad place. That was where Jarvis could be found.

Drained, he laid on his bed as soon as he was back inside his apartment. He didn’t bother with his shoes, or even checking his messages. What to do with forever. An eerie question. He was deeply, deeply glad that he did not have to be burdened with such. Only tomorrow. Which was plenty heavy enough.