Collab Story

The town slept silently under a backdrop of starts, the moon lay hidden behind a blanket of clouds, half concealed, it continuously tries to peek around, being covered again as soon as it gets free. There is only one major road through the town, dotted with houses and store fronts, their lights going out like fireflies going home for the night. In this serenity, a wagon pulls slowly into the back alleyway, behind the first set of shops.
"I don't feel good about this," said the driver, as the wagon creaked to a halt, forming ruts in the wet mud, "I mean, what are we going to do with all this junk anyway?"
The driver climbed down off the wagon, waking Thomas, who had fallen asleep behind the dumpster earlier that day. He slowly peeked around to see who had awakened him. The man -what he could see of him- was tall, with a black overcoat that reached down to his wingtip shoes, his hat covered most of his facial features, and had a small, fearful voice when he spoke.
"I really don't feel good about this," he said again, turning to the door on his left, "the last time this happened-" He trailed off, knocked on the door, and went inside after it was opened by a gruff looking man.
The door closed, and Thomas ran to the window nearest to it, clambering over boxes and old milk cartons, assortments of empty wine bottles, the mahogany boxes they were stored in, and various other items, finally reaching the top. He peered through the grimy windowpane, and saw a room full of men, some distorted by the grime on the window. He began to scan the crowd, seeing no-one he recognized; He noticed that the man at the door was walking to the back of the room, and sat down in one of the seats near the front of the congregation, followed shortly by the gruff man, who walked right past Thomas -who instinctively ducked- and sat in a chair, so he could guard the door while listening to the speaker. He noticed then that all the crowd was mingling with each other, some looked uneasy like the man who he saw first, while others seemed excited. It was
at this moment of conversational piquing that someone stood and walked to the front of the room.Thomas ducked again, as the man passed, and peeked back over. The words came softly, slightly distorted by the glass and wall, but they were understandable.
"Quiet, quiet," the man said (though through it sounded more like: Kwat, kwat through the wall), "You all know why you're here," He paused, letting the room fall into absolute silence, "tonight is the anniversary of a special event, one that needs to be repeated soon." The crowd murmured and shuffled around at this last comment. "I said Quiet!" The room hushed quickly, "now I know that some of you don't like the idea, but it needs to happen again-"
Thomas' thoughts drifted from speaker to the crowd as he scanned it again. He noticed that some of the members were looking at each other uneasily, as though they had something against what the man was saying, while others were glaring at the speaker; their eyes seemed to form lines of hatred that bored into his soul, though the man took no notice of them and continued on with his speech. It was at this time that Thomas felt a hand on his shirt cuff and realized that the man was no longer sitting by the window.
With extraordinary strength he was whipped around and came face to face, five feet off the ground, to the man who opened the door earlier. "What're you doing boy?" he half shouted, half spat, into Thomas' face. Closer up, the man was more gruff than he had appeared: his face had a large scar, intersecting with his left eye-which was covered by a patch; he had a once white longsleeved shirt on, rolled up to the sleeves, and his breath, oddly enough, smelled of mint.
"Are ya' deaf boy? I asked what're you doing!" He shouted at him again, enunciating his words by shaking him back and forth like some mannequin, whose director had a sudden fit of epilepsy. Thomas' brain was working as fast as it could, trying to come up with an explanation.
"well-" he started timidly, trying to grasp his wits after being shaken.
"Well What?!" The man shouted again.
"Well, I was just asleep over there behind that dumpster, I heard someone speaking loudly and that woke me up-" he started the lie out smoothly, letting his tongue work slightly slower than his brain was thinking, "so I got on those boxes over there to look in and see what time it was, my mother gets angry if I get home to late, you see, and you grabbed me off just now." He finished, sighing while simultaneously praying that he would believe his story.
The man stared at him for a moment longer before setting him down. "So what's yer' name?" His voice much calmer, sounded less course and even took on an overtone of hospitality.
"Thomas," he said, "what's yours?"
"Mine's Bernard," he said, his voice calming even more, "you'd better get off home, it's nearly third watch."
Thomas thanked the man-and God-and ran out of the alleyway. Bernard walked to the edge of the alley and watched him leave, then sighed heavily. "That kid has some tongue about him," he said under his breath, "he'll get himself killed if he uses it wrong too often." He turned and walked back into the the darkness of the alleyway, back to the door, back to the congregation of conspirators.

> The forseer