Monday, November 27, 2023

Residential Block Northern Shopping District.... Impasse

 “All in one piece, then?” the sergeant asked, his attention still focused at the lower ever-stair landing.

The professor nodded, then added a “Yes,” when the sergeant did not look his way. 

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but…’ attached to that.” 

“Reinforcements,” the corporal said. “Eight, that we know of. Down from nearly a dozen.” 

The sergeant grunted. “It was awfully quiet work.”

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Residential Bloc Northern Shopping District, continued...

 

The professor looked down, and then behind himself.
 

“She was just here!”
 

“Well, now she isn’t,” the sergeant said, with a glance at the professor. “Fix that, so we can get out of here.”
From the distance, in the darkness, there came a flash of bluish light, and the sound of a man’s voice — and then another’s — crying out.

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Residential Bloc North Shopping Disctrict, continued...


 (4♢)They found the sergeant crouched at the top of the second floor ever-stair landing, helmed up, sighting down his longarm, which he braced against the central railing.


“What in the hells is—” the corporal began, only to be cut off by the sharp report from a sidearm, the bullet pinging off the immobile ever-stair between the first and second floor.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Residential Bloc 77G North Shopping District, continued

The corporal shrugged off his pack at the top of the immobile ever-stairs’ third landing. “I’ll take up station here.”


The professor, too, dropped his pack, and after a glance at the directory map on the wall, started down the tiled path towards Maiden’s Wear. He turned, when the girl didn’t follow, and held out a hand.


“Come along, girl,” he said.

Saturday, August 12, 2023

Residential Bloc 77G North Shopping District

 

“What about this one?” the corporal asked, holding up something frilly and pink, with an inordinate amount of bows in front of the girl.


As with the three dresses he’d picked prior, the girl looked the garment up and down, and then returned her stare to someplace that seemed to always be over the shoulder of whomever was speaking to her.


“Yeah, not particularly practical.” The corporal tossed it aside, atop the pile with the others.

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Uthorrad, Inner City Residential Bloc, continued....

 

“Hold!” the sergeant called, when after three paces, he realized that the girl had not followed.


“Last chance,” he told her, and waited a beat. Then another.  He had just turned on his heel to resume his march when the howls sprang up. Not close, well beyond the borders of the housing bloc’s grove. But not so far away that a loping run wouldn’t see them breaking through the trees in less than a stretch’s turnover.

Sunday, April 9, 2023

Uthorrad, Inner City Residential Bloc 77G, continued...

 

    The wolf-like beasts advanced, spreading out. One angled for the men, while the other two made for the girl.
    The dark-haired man dropped to one knee at the bottom of the stairs, bringing his longarm up, sighting down the barrel. His shot dropped one of the wargs headed for the girl. The corporal kept running, firing from the hip, wounding the other wolf-like creature.