Rob Blackwell - A Soul To Steal

“Yeah, I get it,” Quinn said, and felt frustrated. He had come here for peace and quiet, not one of Buzz’s exceedingly bizarre lectures.

“No, you don’t,” Buzz said, and looked at him strangely. “But you might, real soon.”

“I don’t follow you,” Quinn said.

“The Lord is back in his manor,” Buzz said, looking around him carefully. He said it in a whisper even though there was no one to be seen in the office.

“The who is back where?” Quinn asked, hardly believing he was having this conversation.

“The Lord is back,” Buzz said.

“What are you talking about? And why are we whispering?” Quinn asked.

“Lord Halloween has returned,” Buzz said.

“Oh,” he replied, relieved. He had thought it was something serious. Instead, he fought off a chuckle. “Gotcha. Back in the manor. Right-o.”

“You don’t believe me?” Buzz asked, notching his eyebrows together in an expression of repressed anger.

“Buzz, it isn’t like this is the first time you’ve warned me,” Quinn said, only to receive a blank look. “Last year? You warned me not to cover the ‘Harvest Celebration’ protest down in Sterling. You told me he would be there.”

“Oh, I’m sure he was, my boy,” Buzz said, looking intently at Quinn. “Just like I’m sure he is around now.”

“Then why hasn’t he done anything?” Quinn asked. “I mean, I know he was a big deal back in the day, but if he was here, why not make his presence known? They caught him, Buzz. Remember?”

“Pah,” Buzz replied, and waved his hand in disgust. “Holober was a patsy.”

“Just like Oswald, right?”

“Don’t get me started on Oswald,” Buzz said.

Quinn tried to contain his laugh, but let it out anyway.

“I know, I know,” Quinn said. “It was the CIA in it with the Mob…”

“You listen to me,” Buzz said, and jabbed his finger in Quinn’s chest. “You should pay attention when I say Lord Halloween has returned. He’s here. I can feel it.”

“Then where are the dead bodies, Buzz?” Quinn replied, and pushed Buzz’s hand out of his way. “We should have seen at least one by now, right?”

“You wait,” Buzz said. “You wait.”

Quinn knew there was no use arguing with Buzz. There was no point in even trying to reason with a man so buried in his own conspiracy theories.

“Okay,” Quinn said.

It appeared to suffice.

“He’s out there,” Buzz said again, almost to himself. “In the jungle, you have a sense for these things.”

Quinn felt an urge to ask if that was where Buzz left his sanity-back in the jungle. He put his hand to his head.

“Sorry to doubt you, Buzz,” he said. “But it’s been a long morning.”

Buzz leaned back and eyed him for a minute.

“I only tell you because the rest of these guys would think I’m crazy,” he said.

Now why would they think that? Quinn thought.

“Laurence only wants an excuse to fire me,” Buzz said. “He’d say I was trying to panic the staff.”

“Laurence does not want to fire you,” Quinn said.

Buzz snorted in patent disbelief.

“You wait,” he said. “He’s just biding his time.”

“He just wants you to come to staff meetings again.”

“Right,” Buzz said. “So they can mock me to my face? So they can tell me how to do my job better? So Rebecca can start complaining again?”

“It isn’t like that,” Quinn said.

“Maybe not to you,” Buzz said, pointing again, this time thankfully away from Quinn’s personal space. “But you don’t remember. No, I won’t go to them. He can fire me for not attending staff meetings if he wants. But I won’t go.”

Quinn looked at Buzz and it was hard not to be taken in with his earnestness. There was no doubt he believed it all. Why he trusted Quinn was beyond his understanding.

“That girl is here to replace me, did you know that?” Buzz asked.

“Why do you say that?” Quinn asked, glad at least to be thinking of Kate again.

“She told me yesterday she wrote some business stories,” he said.

“She’s written a lot of things, Buzz,” Quinn replied. “Including business. I think that was her way of volunteering, that’s all.”

Buzz paused to consider this.

“Well, she doesn’t have my experience, that’s true,” he said, obviously carrying on some type of internal conversation as well.

“Relax,” Quinn said, as calmly as he could. “They are not trying to take your job.”

“You wait,” Buzz said again, but he didn’t continue. Instead, there was a significant pause. “Can you do another business profile for me?” he finally asked.

“But I’m already doing the coin-sorting place,” Quinn said. “I was just working on that.”

“I know, I know,” Buzz said. “I wouldn’t ask, my boy, but I…”

He turned up his hands in a shrug.

“I won’t ask you for one next week. I promise.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Quinn said.

“This time I mean it.”

“I’ve heard that too,” he said.

“I know, I know,” Buzz said.

“Why not ask Kate?” Quinn asked, and when Buzz gave him a blank stare added, “The new girl?”

“Laurence told me he had her working on other things,” Buzz said.

“How about Alexis?” he asked. “Or Helen?”

“They both refused,” he said. “I need it for my pages. I swear this is the last time I’ll have you do double duty. Please. They’ll fire me if I don’t get in enough stories. They are just waiting…”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Quinn said. “What’s the story?”

And that was how Quinn found himself two hours later driving out to Middleburg.

Kate stood before her mother’s grave, reading the inscription for the hundredth time.

“Sarah Blakely,” it said simply. “Beloved wife and mother.”

That was it. Somehow she thought there should be more. Something that made this grave stand out from the hundreds of others.

Carefully, she leaned down and put the pot of flowers by the memorial. This at least gave the impression that someone cared about her mom. When she arrived, it had looked deserted. She looked at the grave and felt guilty.

“I’m sorry I haven’t come in a while, Mom,” she offered. “It’s just…”

Her dad made the trip at least once a year. Even after he remarried, he still came down. He invited Kate, of course. But she never wanted to come and he wasn’t the type to force an issue.

“Dad’s doing well,” she said. “He likes Anne well enough but I don’t think he ever got over you. I guess you are just that great.”

She smiled. She thought that she should feel more, but instead she just felt numb. She tried to picture her mom and couldn’t call up an image.

“I’m sorry,” she offered. “I don’t know what else to say.”

She stood there staring at the inscription. She felt like there was something more she was supposed to do, but she couldn’t think of what. She had spent so long feeling the anger from the day her mother died, she was unsure she wanted to think too much about it anymore. But unfortunately, that had meant not thinking much about her mother anymore either. Not a day went by when she didn’t think about it at some time or another. It had hung over her life like a dark cloud and she didn’t think it would ever go away.

Since she had arrived in town, she had been forced to think about it. The memories and the dreams made it feel like it had occurred just a few days ago, not more than a decade before.

“Wherever I go, some part of me will always be here, Mom,” she said. “I can never leave it.”

She hadn’t visited the grave in years, but it was easy to remember where it was. It was always there in the dreams. She shouldn’t have come back. She had thought it might make it better, but now that seemed laughable. Instead, she was either waking up screaming or seeing things near the printing press. That vision had seemed so real…