Impulsive

Page 16

The air was fresh and thin in the Garden District. The breeze was clean and soft. Arthur pushed his hair out of his face and smiled tightly, chuckling softly.

 

“I hate myself.”

 

.:______________________:.

 

“You let him out?!” Fran hissed at Graham.

 

“He needed air, I didn’t think he would bolt-” None of the constables who decided to join the two had a clue where Hastings went.

 

“You know we need him, right?” Fran rolled his eyes and continued walking.

 

“From the little that he talked to me about, he said he was thrown out of the Parade, he found himself in a bunker leading to the Garden District; maybe he went back there. Again,” Graham suggested, tipping his hat at a small old lady.

 

“And how do we get back there?”

 

.:______________________:.

 

“That was fucked.” Fran looked absolutely frazzled.

 

“Bobby poppers need to take bobbies places quickly.” Graham poked Fran’s chest, “I thought you would know that.” They both argued for a while until Watts said something.

 

“Shut up,” he paused, opening his mouth and cupping his ear. “Do you hear that?”

 

“Other than the birds and crickets, no.”

 

“That’s the point, usually there's footsteps, people walking around, talking, rummaging through trash, reflecting on old times,” Watts said, pausing to catch his breath.

 

“And how do you know that?” another bobby questioned.

 

“Truth be told they have some great resources here.” Watts shrugged and rummaged through some bushes. “See here? These are Rose of Gilead, they make healing balm,” he said, slipping them into his pockets and grabbing more on the way.

 

“Do you know this place? Do you know the people?” Fran asked.

 

“Righto, they’re all quite friendly.” Watts turned around and did finger guns at Fran.

 

“Watts!” Everyone looked over. “We need some help ‘ere!” A downer was trapped under a fallen concrete wall.

 

“Coming!” Watts ran over and helped push the concrete off of the poor man.

 

“What in the name of Uncle Jack happened here?”

 

“Joy doctors happened.” The man paused to catch his breath. “Sucked up a bunch of us, just destroyed everything, including our water pumps.”

 

“We’re lucky you decided to come by earlier than usual or else he would have died.”

 

“About that, I’m here because we were taking care of a certain Arthur Hastings. You know if you’ve seen him?” She tapped her chin.

 

“Tall, lanky, dark hair, baggy clothing?” She listed at which Graham nodded at.

 

“You’ve seen him?”

 

“Yeah, he was running, looking frazzled. Then the joy doctors followed.” She looked down and stood up. “I don’t know if he escaped but I can show you where I last saw him.”

 

The group walked in silence for a while until Fran spoke, “this place is… Beautiful.”

 

“Indeed.” She chuckled lightly. Like Arthur said, the air did feel lighter here.

 

“Here.” She stopped and crouched, picking up a shirt. “He was wearing this.” Everyone looked over, the large, army green shirt that Arthur seemed to love was discarded. He wouldn’t do such a thing.

 

.:______________________:.

 

Spit flew out of the corners of his mouth as all of his muscles tightened.

 

“Pathetic, you all are.” The other’s around Arthur were shaking in fear, Arthur was too, he didn’t want to end up like that other guy. Electrocuted.

 

They were all tossed into a room, it was dark beside for the window that shined a bit of sun through just to taunt them. He gasped as pain split up his side, probably opened a cut again. He coughed and manned up, standing and peering out of the crack in the window covering. Looks like that Jubilator-esk machine didn’t take them too far. It hurt being squished so close to other people, the air was knocked out of everyone and so was rational sense.