Death of a a Stranger, Loss of a Human

        Ray Staunton was working busily at his kitchen counter on a Saturday
afternoon.  His girlfriend Sue was coming over for dinner, so he decided to
make her something special, her favorite - fettuccini.  They had been going
steady for three years now, and he felt ready for a commitment.  He had a
stable job as a manager of Taser Security, and Sue had a great job at the
hospital as a nurse.  Ray was 29 and Sue was 24.  They were happy.  Ray had
these thoughts running through his head when he realized that he had no more
milk for the sauce.  He went to the sink, wiped off his hands and headed for
the door.

        "Shit, better leave her a note in case I'm not back in time" he said
to himself.

        He wrote quickly on a napkin, "dear Sue, be back soon, just getting
milk, love you, Ray." and with that, taped it to the outside of his apartment
door and walked down the silent gray corridor, the hum of the complex wall
lights keeping him company.  He opened the door to the stairwell quickly and
began descending the five flights of stairs to the parking garage, his
footsteps echoing hollowly in the silence.  The underground parkade held no
noise except for that of the occasional car door slamming in the distance and
the ever-present hum of the overhead lights.  He walked straight ahead to his
refurbished 1969 mustang, pulled his key ring from his pocket and selected the
proper key.  As he put the key into the lock, the lights in the garage
flickered a little and a cold wind swept past him, causing him to shiver.  Ray
looked around his surroundings slowly, his body picking up on the classic
signs of bad omens.  He was nervous.

        Ray was just about out of the parking garage when a large black-
panelled van came squealing around the corner, heading directly at him.  He
swerved to the left into the other lane, his tires screeching from the sudden
change.  His car swerved some more, fishtailing wildly as he went onto the
road.  Ray slammed on the breaks causing his car to skid a couple of feet
before it stopped in the middle of the road, a line of cars fast forming on
his left side.  Some yelled at him.

        "Hey, asshole, what's wrong with you?  That's just stupid coming on to
the road at that speed."

        Ray looked to his left and saw a short blond skinny guy sitting behind
the wheel of an orange Volkswagen only a few feet from his car.

        "I should come out there and kick your ass you little puke, you almost
trashed my car, hell, you could've killed me"

        Ray still sat there, staring at the man.  Ray knew that there was
almost no way that the guy in the Volkswagen could hurt him.  He looked very
small and weak, while he himself was 6'4" at 240lbs and was well-versed in
various martial arts.  He put his hand on the door handle, readying to open
it and throttle the obnoxious dick head when he suddenly thought about what he
was going to do.  He had never ever started a fight in his life and he wasn't
about to now.  Ray glared at the guy who was glaring back, put his hands on
the wheel and drove away, feeling his hands tremble.

        "Jesus... I guess that van scared me more than I thought..."

        It was only a five-minute drive from Ray's apartment to the Safeway he
pulled into.  He parked as close as he could get and hopped out, not bothering
to lock the door - he would only be a few minutes.  Just as Ray was entering
the Safeway again, he felt a cold wind brush past him again.  He shivered
again, somehow knowing that something would go wrong for him, like it had in
the parcade back at his apartment.

        "Excuse me sir, would you like to try a free sample of our new
liverwurst?" a young wearing a white blouse with a red apron asked him.

        Ray just stared at her for a moment and didn't say anything, he was
still trying to work things out, wondering what was going to happen.

        "Uh, no, no thanks," he muttered to her and walked away quickly,
feeling his pulse quicken in fear of the unknown and somehow inevitable.

        Ray quickly found the milk he was looking for and took it to the
cashier where he stood in line behind five other people.  He stood there
waiting impatiently behind an old man who was slowly picking cans out of his
basket and placing them on the counter.  Ray stared vacantly outside, when he
gaze drifted over to where his car was parked.  Something wasn't right.
There were about four or five people hanging around his car, one of them was
leaning against it.  He then realized that these guys were either ripping
stuff off from his car or just outright destroying it, and right there in
front of everybody.  Ray ran, dropped the milk on the floor and rushed
outside to confront the men.  They looked like your typical hoods.  Leather
jacket, ripped jeans, greasy and unshaven.  Ray yelled at them.

        "What the hell do you think you're doing?  That's my car".

        The men just stared at them.  One of them stepped forward and spat
right in his face.  Ray felt himself losing control; he felt a raw heated rage
inside of him that seemed to be burning away his reason.  He leapt for the
nearest man and grabbed his head and twisted.  There was the sound of
crunching bone and a slight spray of blood as Ray snapped his neck.  The man's
body went instantly limp and his bulk pulled Ray down until he let go.  He
brought his hands up in front of him, staring at them.  He could still feel
the warmth and grease of the man's neck.  The rest of the men stood silently,
looking at their dead friend lying in the dirt of the Safeway parking lot, his
neck bent at an impossible angle.  Ray stared at the men who were now glaring
at him in malice and he shook his head and kept on repeating "I'm sorry, I'm
sorry, I didn't mean to".  One of the men reached into his worn and cracked
leather jacket to withdraw a very long and very wicked knife.  Seeing this,
the other three men did the same.  One came out with a club while the other
two brought out knives similar to the first man's.  Ray looked to his right
and left, trying to find a means of escape.  That was when he noticed that
anybody who walked by and saw the confrontation would just stand there for a
moment watching, then carry on about his or her business.

        "Oh, Christ!" yelled Ray when what was going to happen finally sunk
into his numbed mind.  He ran.  The men followed.

        Ray ran through the Safeway parking lot and across the street as fast
as he could, just barely making it ahead of a traffic light, leaving the four
men stuck on the other side of the road.  Ray ran straight into a dark alley,
trying to lose the men as fast as he could.  It was a long one, "one of the
dark and dingy ones you see in the movies where some guy gets murdered," Ray
thought with a sudden chill.  He had to slow his run to a jog so that he
could make his way through the heaped piles of trash.  As Ray was nearing the
end of the alley, a short and fat figure seemed to rise up from out of the
ground.  It was too dark to make out any of the features of the being, but
there was enough light to reflect off of the barbed seven-inch knife blade in
its hands.

        Ray stepped backwards quickly and looked behind him.  The four men
were walking slowly into the alley, their weapons out and ready.  Ray felt the
first thrust of the knife enter his lower back before he had time to turn
around and check that other figure.  Ray clutched his back and felt the hot
blood wash through and around his fingers.  Crying out in pain and anger, Ray
turned to face the little human and let fly with a powerful kick to the side
of the person's head.  The kick was strong enough to crush the figure's temple,
killing instantly.  The body fell to the ground in a stinking heap of garbage.
He stood there looking at the body in an odd and perverse amusement, then
crumpled to the ground as the first of several blows from one of the four men
rained down upon him.  He fought for consciousness, feeling it slip away
through his fingers like blood.  He tried to move, to do anything but he
could not.  His body was numb and he could no longer feel the club or the
sharp kicks to his stomach, ribs and head.  Ray took one last breath and
screamed out, "Sue" hoping that she would somehow hear him.  Ray lost
consciousness and died a few minutes later, many of his internal organs having
ruptured and his head partially caved in.

        A day after Ray's death, a missing persons report went out for him.
Many people came forward, saying that they saw the confrontation in the
Safeway parking lot, but did not know what had happened after that because
they had other things to do.  It had never occurred to them that they could
have done something to help the stranger who was in obvious trouble.  That
same day in the early evening, a little girl had been walking her dog.  As
she drew parallel with an alley across the street from a Safeway parking lot,
her dog pulled hard against its leash, dragging her little girl into the alley.
It kept pulling her into the dark alley for at least 20 feet before it stopped
at two bodies lying on the ground.  Each one was blue, as if they had been
stored in a freezer.  Blood was congealed around one of the bodies,
surrounding it like a kind of cloak.  The little girl dropped the dogs leash
and ran out of the alley screaming.
SAUCE00Death of a Stranger, Loss of a HumaSpectral Knight     mISTFUNK 1998       19980529`%