Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER THREE -

The Christmas traffic had the international departures terminal crowded with travellers. Coloured lights twinkled, hot chocolates steamed and children ran about, playing video games or enduring scolding parents. Unremarkable in their midst, the janitor walked down the long arched corridors as dozens of planes stood waiting at their respective gates.

The sitting areas of the terminal were filled with travellers, bags and presents. The janitor paid the assembled passengers little attention. They could wait. If the Shade's plan bore fruit, he could hunt each and every one of these wretched humans at his leisure.

Arriving at his gate, Rabdos took one of the few empty seats left. Blood stained the collar and cuffs of the janitor's shirt, though only splatters of grey paint stained the overalls. No one paid him any attention while he waited. Nearby, some travellers draped their jackets about themselves. The extra layers did little to ward off the chill growing from the base of their spines to spread goose bumps across their bodies.

The December sun's light streamed down warm through the skylights onto the waiting travellers. Small hazes of dust and lint floated through the sunbeams, except around the Janitor's body. The sunlight itself seemed to avoid Rabdos's current vessel, preferring to fall on the empty chairs and carpet around him.

The first of the many flights before his, boarded. Every passenger was relieved to finally be underway. Settling into the seats on their respective flights, warmth returned to their bodies. They felt excited to be heading to their homes, their loved ones or off on their long anticipated getaways. Over the hours he had waited for his flight, Rabdos had not spoken to anyone, except for a young girl who had walked past him. Now, curled up at the rear of the plane climbing steadily up and away from the airport, she was wrapped in a heap of blankets and sweating from fear. The little girl heard over and over again in her head what the man had uttered to her. It was a hissing sigh, dripping with menace and ice.

"sssssSkinner."

She remembered looking in his eyes and that's when the fear came. Over and over, the fear surged through her as though pouring from a glacier fed bucket. The voice hissed to her and bored into her mind with each rush of cold fear. She saw fire, followed by darkness, before the voice would return to repeat it all again.

Slowly her brain was unravelling itself. Within a few months she would be institutionalized. Unaware of any stimuli she would only repeat in a hiss that one word until taking her own life. Thinking her charge to be witless, a nurse would leave a ballpoint pen and clipboard near the child's bedside. Finding the little girl moments after she stabbed herself in the throat, the nurse would hear her hiss one last time, "sssssssSkinner."

But, for now the little girl, wrapped in blankets, wiped away her tears. In a lull between the constant visions, her mother was on the verge of a panic attack. Her daughter was the light in her life and she had never seen her act in such a fashion. Her heart sank when adjusting her daughter's blankets the darling baby girl looked up at her. Her mother saw the fear in her child's eyes when she said, "sssssSkinner."

In Jakarta, in a far corner of the room where the second round rumpus of Skinner and his young lady friend was underway, the tall white haired man turned his ocean blue eyes away from the scene. As Ozah bowed his head the white locks of his hair bounced as he chose to stare out the window at the approaching clouds, rather than the activities inside. Heavy with rain, he felt the air pressure changing about him. He let out a long suffering sigh. A storm was coming and Ozah felt tired for the first time in millennia.