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"No, Carl, he isn't wanted, I told you! He's an old man who needed a place to stay for the night! I didn't know he was crazy!" Marshall Black was losing his patience with Carl Peters, the young city attorney. He’d had a great relationship with Nate Symons, but Carl Peters was a different story, altogether. Carl, the son of a political family in Stillwater, had run for the position unopposed when Nate died last December.
Michael paced as he spoke, switching the phone from ear to ear as he walked, finally coming to rest on the edge of his massive oak desk. Straightening the picture of Emily and the kids, he said, "Carl, he'll be gone this afternoon, I promise, but at least let him be seen by Dr. Aquino. I don't want it on my conscience, if I let him go and he grabs a piece of pipe and bludgeons some family while they sleep. You know as well as I do, that these people are very unpredictable. Who knows, maybe Dr. Aquino will agree with my assessment, and recommend that he spend some time in Stillwater." Michael held the phone away from his body and shook his head up and down in mock agreement with the words emanating from the receiver.
"Yes, Carl...yes...okay. Carl... Look, I've gotta go, I'll keep you informed... yea...okay, bye…"
The phone back down on its cradle, Michael put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes and shook his head, hoping to clear the cobwebs. The bureaucracy of the job was becoming more than he wanted. Every year it seemed to get more and more difficult to work within the system. With budget constraints and labor union presence (to name only two of the more pervasive problems), being the town constable just wasn't very rewarding anymore. Now, with a new young lion for a boss, the prospect of being an ordinary citizen held more and more attraction, although he wasn't sure what he'd do. Certainly nothing could be as frustrating or unrewarding as this.
********
Twenty-four hours ago, Manny hadn't a care in the world. Now, he wasn't sure about anything that had happened. As he lay in his hospital bed, he could only stare at the ceiling and wonder. The sedative they'd given him made him nauseous, but he did manage to sleep for awhile, although it was a fitful period filled with dreams of flight and violence. He would run and run and run, but always the beast would catch him, and just as those massive jaws started to close on his body, he'd wake up, mercifully. The worst part was that the beast's eyes looked just like Harold's, except that they blazed like red-hot coals when his jaws closed on Manny. Maybe Harold was right. Maybe he was about to die. Right now, at this very second, he just didn't care.
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