My Precious Nightmare

Chapter 38: Bravado

Aster had no idea what that bastard teacher of his had been thinking. Tracking a cell phone wasn't as easy as he thought. Yeah, maybe out in the middle of nowhere or in a small town, but in a city? Where there wasn't just coordinates to worry about, but elevation and all the other various signals interfering. Also, the stupid lemon shampoo had the downside of muddling up his sense of smell so he got it in splotches. Though, blame it as much as he wanted, Aster just wasn't used to using his sense of smell. He thought it pointless and appalling to go around remembering people's disgusting scents just so he could stalk them. No. He'd rather use his satellite images, hidden cameras, traffic cams, and cross references to find what he wanted. They were more useful anyway.

But here, he didn't have the time to wait on his technology to kick into gear.

Thus, he found himself with his nose in the air in an attempt to keep it as far from his lemon scentless body as possible. If there was any smell he unwillingly memorized, it had been of Lea's shrimpy girlfriend. She had smelled disgustingly sweet, like all the warm pastries. He hated sweets.

After five minutes of standing in the darkness, breathing, he cursed.

"Why does the city have to stink so damn much?" For God's sake, he could smell freaking dog urine on the nearest street lamp and some day-old funnel cake that had been dropped on the sidewalk and then carried off by pigeons.

He glanced back down at his phone to recheck his coordinates. He was in the right area. This shouldn't be so hard.

Five more minutes of sniffing deep and trying to make out the scents, he gave a quiet roar and dropped his head against the wall of the nearest building. At least the street beside that alley was mostly empty. It was near a construction site, so there wouldn't be much traffic.

He closed his eyes, trying to think. Even as he did so, a tickling awareness came to his mind.

This is how it had been. Back in the darkness, when he had seen Sky sucked dry.

Aster dropped to his haunches and hunched his shoulders up, hoping to block out any direct light in their shadow.

What was it the shrimp said? Concentrate on the darkness. Become aware of it blanketed around you, of its own awareness of you without thought, without consciousness...

It was almost too easy to block out the smells as well. Having his nose pressed up to his body could do that.

Readily, like a movie reel waiting to begin, splotchy images from outside his thoughts started to filter through.

The splotches in the image lengthened, turning to something like ropes. Pale flesh poked out from their ends, down to a bare torso and messy, white-streaked black hair. Planks of wood—frames for walls before insulation and drywall could be applied—some were snapped and broken. But it was the cinder blocks surrounding the hanging body that Aster could see clearly. They were an old type of brick, used in industrial buildings during the forties and fifties.

Inside, he thought, and the moment he did the vision snapped closed.

Having a destination, he stood and took aim towards the old factory amidst a mess of construction tarp and began his way from shadow to shadow, rolling his feet as the shrimp had taught him and mentally cushioning each bend of his joints. His black bodysuit did not make a sound.

Finding a way inside was laughably easy. Aster was surprised on not seeing any hobos asleep in the corners when he stepped past the tarp and into the darkness beyond. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust, which he cursed. Another testament of the lingering humanity still in his body. But once he could see, it was just more tarp and bricks and wooden frames. The CEO part of his mind could make out the beginning stages of turning the old factory into apartment building.