The Night Watchman
Aug. 21st, 2004 02:40 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wulfboy.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
just_writingHai! Late night! I wrote this because the one I was writing about the sinister machinations of the household cat just didn't work out. The title belongs to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nyarbaggytep, and following her example I have cross-posted it.
I'm not happy with it, but I would appreciate constructive criticism on how to make it better. Then I'll rewrite it and see what happens.
The Night Watchman
Phil and I were in need. We were starting to get desperate. It looked an easy mark, from the outside. We'd watched it for the last week, day as well as night. Even during the day the place was almost deserted - Phil joked we could go at high noon without risk of being spotted by anyone who mattered. At night, there was just a single nightwatchman.
The wood around the window we'd picked was rotten; it was a matter of seconds to jemmy it open. Phil slipped through, head first, and I followed straight after. We'd clambered into a storeroom that a quick rifle-through showed to be full of mops, boxes of rubber gloves, opaque plastic containers of yellow and green syrup, plasic aprons, plastic bags, plastic buckets. A total let down. Now we were inside, a allowed myself the luxury of a thin pencil light so we could read the labels on the boxes. Nothing. Phil helped himself to a couple of packs of the rubber gloves, just on the off chance.
The door to the storeroom was unlocked, which was just as well as we didn't need the hassle of trying to get a locked door open. On the other side, a hallway with a couple of skylights. Gloom. A few offices, it looked like. At the end the doors out into the main storae area. We checked the doors of the offices, just to make sure they were empty. White plastic sheets covered everything, turning the furniture shapeless. It was obvious nobody had been in any of them for a fair while. The only things working here were spiders.
The door at the end of the hall had a frosted-glass window set into it, and we took it in turns trying to peer through it. There was no light. We debated as quickly and quietly as possible what to do next. Wait until the man made his rounds, and risk him coming down this corridor, or push on into the main storage area and hope he was in another part of the building. Phil's enthusiasm won over my caution. We slipped the door open, just enough, and slid through like shadows.
The main storage area help crates, stacked two and three stories high towards the distant roof. A little dim city-light came in through the windows that ringed the great hall, but it was diffuse; we'd seen those windows from the outside, and they hadn't seen a rag in decades. I'd become used to the night, over the last few months with Phil, but in here it felt . . . heavier, somehow. As we moved, I kept having to wave my hand in front of my face to assure myself I wasn't walking through cobwebs.
The walls of boxes and crates left only a little room for maneuverability. Phil was pointing his light at the side of crates as we crept about, looking for something portable but valuable. I kept my eyes open for the watchman, but there was nothing to see. No movement, no light. The boxes were stifling me, a little; I've never been claustrophobic, but here in the dark . . .
I found myself wondering what Mr A. did in here all day. It was obvious he wasn't using the offices, he didn't seem to employ any permanent staff except the night watchman. We hadn't seen him taking any boxes out; just one delivery three days ago, a half-dozen wooden-sided crates. Carried in by the driver and Mr A. through the loading dock that was towards the back, where Phil had seen the boxes.
That was where we were going. After a few minutes, Phil made a quiet hissing noise, and ran his torch over a crate.
"Divvids." He said quietly. He pulled out his knife and cut two straight lines into the side of the cardboard, folding them quickly back. He stuggled for a moment, then pulled something free. An unmarked DVD case. He snapped it open - the noise like a gunshot in the quiet - and gave a nod. Sanpped it shut, handed it back to me. I took it gingerly. The black plastic cover felt oddly soft as I transferred it into an inside pocket. Phil unzipped his bag - more noise - and started taking cases out of the box and packing them away. He was kneeling, paying all his attention to the task at hand. I shone my torch over a few other boxes, and was struck by how many different destinations they had come from. Here was one marked with Chinese charactrs, there one with some Arab script, beside two that looked to have French or Italian words, beneath one that was probably in some Indian language from the weird shapes of the letters. I turned round to say something to Phil.
Caught in the torch was the nightwatchman. He was standing two feet in front of the kneeling Phil. Neither of us had heard anything, seen anything. The man had a dark uniform, complete with a peaked cap, and no torch. He was pasty, and staring at Phil like he was trying to work out what he was.
"Fuck" said Phil.
The nightwatchman moved forward with a suddeness that took me by surprise, grabbing Phil by the shoulders and jerking him to his feet. Phil pushed, I took a deep breath to shout and then the night watchman froze. I heard Phil grunt, surprised, and then it was quiet again. Phil pulled back, jumped back towards me grabbing the bag, and said
"Run"
Just that, quietly. His knife was stuck in the guard's chest. The guard was looking at it with that same concerned, confused expression. Phil and I ran down beween the aisles of crates, heading back to the hall and the storeroom and the window. As we reached the door, Phil was a little behind me; he'd scattered a dozen-or-so DVD cases behind us from his half-open bag, and I could here him muttering
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" over and over. He'd stabbed the guy. The knife was deep in, probably in a lung. This was not something they let you away with.
I pushed the door, with the frosted glass, and it failed to open. I pulled it. It failed to move. I turned, still holding the doorhandle, and started to say something stupid like "It's locked" and I realised that I could not see Phil behind me. I could not hear him. But I could see the sportsbag, and the scattering of DVDs around it.
"Phil?" I asked, whispering as loudly as I dared. "Phil, stop fucking about, the doors locked do you want to smash the window or what?"
No answer. My heart was slamming against my ribs hard enough to hurt. I wasn't breathing, I realised. I let go of the door, stepped over to the discarded bag, picked it up. I felt movement - I heard nothing - and I ducked without thinking. Something caught scrags of my hair, ripping them loose with chunks of scalp. I sprawled, rolled, somehow got my back against a box. The night watchman was there again, leaning over me. He seemed unconcerned about the knife-hilt sticking out of his chest. His expression hadn't changed. I scuffed away from him across the concrete floor, slammed against some boxes, and he came forward, taking his time.
There was something luminous about him, I thought he might have had a dim light pinned to the front of his jacket, or under his jacket, or in a pocket. It seemed to illuminate nothing but his face, shadowed under his hat.
"Please man, lerrus go. We'll drop the stuff."
The guard didn't care. He wasn't listening. He grabbed me by the shoulder, hard enough to make me cry out - his fingers dug into me through his dark-coloured gloves, and he jerked me seemingly without effort to my feet.
I swung the bag, the only thing to hand, with all my strength and caught him across the side of the face.
His head came off.
I didn't see where it landed, as the bag flew out of my numb fingers and burst in a shrapnel of plastic cases and shiny discs. His hand closed convuslively around my shoulder and I felt an explosion of pain that had me reeling drunkenly, almost passing out. My whole arm went numb, down from the shoulder where his hand still spasmed. I shouted in revulsion and horror, and tore myself loose. Something sliced my face. There was an insane clicking noise from the guard's body, a twanging, and he began to fountain shiny pieces of metal in all direction from his open neck. One of his arms shot out with enough force to embed itself inside a wooden crate, then fell loose as he swung around and around, scattering bits everywhere.
I sobbed, covering my face with my arms, and ran the only way I could - past him. He grabbed for me with his remaining arm as I ducked past, but the fingers found no purchase, and the speed of his movement seemed to accelerate his disintegration. I felt pieces of him bouncing off my head, getting tangled in my hair, as I fled.
That wasn't the worst of it, though. As I ran, a cry seemed to go up from somewhere nearby, someone - a boy, a woman - crying out a bubbling cry without discernable words that was echoed from somewhere else, someone shouting over and over "please, please, please" just that and nothing more. A third voice - certainly a young mans - calling my name over and over, not too far away. Even then, despite everything else, I might have gone to look and see who it was, where they were, but it was then that the lights started to go on up above. One at a time a sulfurous orange-yellow glow and I knew that I was not alone in the warehouse after all.
I smashed the frosted glass on the door that lead towards the offices, and cut myself badly as I vaulted through. Somewhere behind me I heard a scraping noise, like something heavy being pushed across the floor, maybe a box, but I didn't stop to look back (I wasn't stupid).
I expected the window to be locked, but it was open. I ran until I couldn't run any more. Sick on a cocktail of terror and sour adrenaline, I retched against a wall, and then I ran some more even though there was no sign of pursuit, ran through the city streets under the orange moon.
I sat up all night waiting for Phil to get back, but he didn't. His mum phoned me, and I said I hadn't seen him. I slept fitfully, waking myself up from nightmares I didn't realise I was having. His mum phoned again. They weren't worried, his mum and dad - not yet anyway. After the second call, I left the phone off the hook.
I shouldn't have watched the DVD, that much is sure. I didn't know the lad who was in it, and I couldn't tell you what language he was screaming in, but that didn't make it any better.
Afterwards, I sat on the sofa, slowly picking little pieces of clockwork out of my hair; there were half a dozen more and a spring in my hood. I just sat there on the sofa, waiting.
I didn't have to wait long.
nyarbaggytep, and following her example I have cross-posted it. I'm not happy with it, but I would appreciate constructive criticism on how to make it better. Then I'll rewrite it and see what happens.
Phil and I were in need. We were starting to get desperate. It looked an easy mark, from the outside. We'd watched it for the last week, day as well as night. Even during the day the place was almost deserted - Phil joked we could go at high noon without risk of being spotted by anyone who mattered. At night, there was just a single nightwatchman.
The wood around the window we'd picked was rotten; it was a matter of seconds to jemmy it open. Phil slipped through, head first, and I followed straight after. We'd clambered into a storeroom that a quick rifle-through showed to be full of mops, boxes of rubber gloves, opaque plastic containers of yellow and green syrup, plasic aprons, plastic bags, plastic buckets. A total let down. Now we were inside, a allowed myself the luxury of a thin pencil light so we could read the labels on the boxes. Nothing. Phil helped himself to a couple of packs of the rubber gloves, just on the off chance.
The door to the storeroom was unlocked, which was just as well as we didn't need the hassle of trying to get a locked door open. On the other side, a hallway with a couple of skylights. Gloom. A few offices, it looked like. At the end the doors out into the main storae area. We checked the doors of the offices, just to make sure they were empty. White plastic sheets covered everything, turning the furniture shapeless. It was obvious nobody had been in any of them for a fair while. The only things working here were spiders.
The door at the end of the hall had a frosted-glass window set into it, and we took it in turns trying to peer through it. There was no light. We debated as quickly and quietly as possible what to do next. Wait until the man made his rounds, and risk him coming down this corridor, or push on into the main storage area and hope he was in another part of the building. Phil's enthusiasm won over my caution. We slipped the door open, just enough, and slid through like shadows.
The main storage area help crates, stacked two and three stories high towards the distant roof. A little dim city-light came in through the windows that ringed the great hall, but it was diffuse; we'd seen those windows from the outside, and they hadn't seen a rag in decades. I'd become used to the night, over the last few months with Phil, but in here it felt . . . heavier, somehow. As we moved, I kept having to wave my hand in front of my face to assure myself I wasn't walking through cobwebs.
The walls of boxes and crates left only a little room for maneuverability. Phil was pointing his light at the side of crates as we crept about, looking for something portable but valuable. I kept my eyes open for the watchman, but there was nothing to see. No movement, no light. The boxes were stifling me, a little; I've never been claustrophobic, but here in the dark . . .
I found myself wondering what Mr A. did in here all day. It was obvious he wasn't using the offices, he didn't seem to employ any permanent staff except the night watchman. We hadn't seen him taking any boxes out; just one delivery three days ago, a half-dozen wooden-sided crates. Carried in by the driver and Mr A. through the loading dock that was towards the back, where Phil had seen the boxes.
That was where we were going. After a few minutes, Phil made a quiet hissing noise, and ran his torch over a crate.
"Divvids." He said quietly. He pulled out his knife and cut two straight lines into the side of the cardboard, folding them quickly back. He stuggled for a moment, then pulled something free. An unmarked DVD case. He snapped it open - the noise like a gunshot in the quiet - and gave a nod. Sanpped it shut, handed it back to me. I took it gingerly. The black plastic cover felt oddly soft as I transferred it into an inside pocket. Phil unzipped his bag - more noise - and started taking cases out of the box and packing them away. He was kneeling, paying all his attention to the task at hand. I shone my torch over a few other boxes, and was struck by how many different destinations they had come from. Here was one marked with Chinese charactrs, there one with some Arab script, beside two that looked to have French or Italian words, beneath one that was probably in some Indian language from the weird shapes of the letters. I turned round to say something to Phil.
Caught in the torch was the nightwatchman. He was standing two feet in front of the kneeling Phil. Neither of us had heard anything, seen anything. The man had a dark uniform, complete with a peaked cap, and no torch. He was pasty, and staring at Phil like he was trying to work out what he was.
"Fuck" said Phil.
The nightwatchman moved forward with a suddeness that took me by surprise, grabbing Phil by the shoulders and jerking him to his feet. Phil pushed, I took a deep breath to shout and then the night watchman froze. I heard Phil grunt, surprised, and then it was quiet again. Phil pulled back, jumped back towards me grabbing the bag, and said
"Run"
Just that, quietly. His knife was stuck in the guard's chest. The guard was looking at it with that same concerned, confused expression. Phil and I ran down beween the aisles of crates, heading back to the hall and the storeroom and the window. As we reached the door, Phil was a little behind me; he'd scattered a dozen-or-so DVD cases behind us from his half-open bag, and I could here him muttering
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" over and over. He'd stabbed the guy. The knife was deep in, probably in a lung. This was not something they let you away with.
I pushed the door, with the frosted glass, and it failed to open. I pulled it. It failed to move. I turned, still holding the doorhandle, and started to say something stupid like "It's locked" and I realised that I could not see Phil behind me. I could not hear him. But I could see the sportsbag, and the scattering of DVDs around it.
"Phil?" I asked, whispering as loudly as I dared. "Phil, stop fucking about, the doors locked do you want to smash the window or what?"
No answer. My heart was slamming against my ribs hard enough to hurt. I wasn't breathing, I realised. I let go of the door, stepped over to the discarded bag, picked it up. I felt movement - I heard nothing - and I ducked without thinking. Something caught scrags of my hair, ripping them loose with chunks of scalp. I sprawled, rolled, somehow got my back against a box. The night watchman was there again, leaning over me. He seemed unconcerned about the knife-hilt sticking out of his chest. His expression hadn't changed. I scuffed away from him across the concrete floor, slammed against some boxes, and he came forward, taking his time.
There was something luminous about him, I thought he might have had a dim light pinned to the front of his jacket, or under his jacket, or in a pocket. It seemed to illuminate nothing but his face, shadowed under his hat.
"Please man, lerrus go. We'll drop the stuff."
The guard didn't care. He wasn't listening. He grabbed me by the shoulder, hard enough to make me cry out - his fingers dug into me through his dark-coloured gloves, and he jerked me seemingly without effort to my feet.
I swung the bag, the only thing to hand, with all my strength and caught him across the side of the face.
His head came off.
I didn't see where it landed, as the bag flew out of my numb fingers and burst in a shrapnel of plastic cases and shiny discs. His hand closed convuslively around my shoulder and I felt an explosion of pain that had me reeling drunkenly, almost passing out. My whole arm went numb, down from the shoulder where his hand still spasmed. I shouted in revulsion and horror, and tore myself loose. Something sliced my face. There was an insane clicking noise from the guard's body, a twanging, and he began to fountain shiny pieces of metal in all direction from his open neck. One of his arms shot out with enough force to embed itself inside a wooden crate, then fell loose as he swung around and around, scattering bits everywhere.
I sobbed, covering my face with my arms, and ran the only way I could - past him. He grabbed for me with his remaining arm as I ducked past, but the fingers found no purchase, and the speed of his movement seemed to accelerate his disintegration. I felt pieces of him bouncing off my head, getting tangled in my hair, as I fled.
That wasn't the worst of it, though. As I ran, a cry seemed to go up from somewhere nearby, someone - a boy, a woman - crying out a bubbling cry without discernable words that was echoed from somewhere else, someone shouting over and over "please, please, please" just that and nothing more. A third voice - certainly a young mans - calling my name over and over, not too far away. Even then, despite everything else, I might have gone to look and see who it was, where they were, but it was then that the lights started to go on up above. One at a time a sulfurous orange-yellow glow and I knew that I was not alone in the warehouse after all.
I smashed the frosted glass on the door that lead towards the offices, and cut myself badly as I vaulted through. Somewhere behind me I heard a scraping noise, like something heavy being pushed across the floor, maybe a box, but I didn't stop to look back (I wasn't stupid).
I expected the window to be locked, but it was open. I ran until I couldn't run any more. Sick on a cocktail of terror and sour adrenaline, I retched against a wall, and then I ran some more even though there was no sign of pursuit, ran through the city streets under the orange moon.
I sat up all night waiting for Phil to get back, but he didn't. His mum phoned me, and I said I hadn't seen him. I slept fitfully, waking myself up from nightmares I didn't realise I was having. His mum phoned again. They weren't worried, his mum and dad - not yet anyway. After the second call, I left the phone off the hook.
I shouldn't have watched the DVD, that much is sure. I didn't know the lad who was in it, and I couldn't tell you what language he was screaming in, but that didn't make it any better.
Afterwards, I sat on the sofa, slowly picking little pieces of clockwork out of my hair; there were half a dozen more and a spring in my hood. I just sat there on the sofa, waiting.
I didn't have to wait long.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Helpful I hope...
Date: 2004-08-21 04:59 am (UTC)Re: Helpful I hope...
Date: 2004-08-21 05:35 am (UTC)What makes the ending disappointing?
Re: Helpful I hope...
Date: 2004-08-21 07:39 am (UTC)Re: Helpful I hope...
Date: 2004-08-21 12:33 pm (UTC)