Anton Strout - Deader Still

“Sir . . . ?”

“No worries, my boy.” He looked up and smiled. “That last parry simply took a lot out of this old man. Guess it is best that we’re training a new generation. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, after all.”

I hobbled to the table at one side of the room and helped myself to a fresh donut there.

“Ahh, the spoils of victory,” the Inspectre said.

Putting in the extra hours being part of F.O.G. added to my already overloaded work schedule, but at least there were snacks.

“You keep this up,” I said, “and you’re going to have to roll me out of here. Remind me to hit the gym more often. Or maybe at all.”

“You might want to look into that, son. It’s just one of the perks of being a F.O.G.gie, you know. It’s free. I wouldn’t want you to put on the ‘Fraternal Fifteen’ on my account.”

“Sure it’s free,” I said. “You want to get me on a treadmill so I can get better at running from even nastier things than I’m already used to running from.”

The Inspectre nodded.

“I think I’m starting to learn that ‘more perks’ really means I stand a greater chance of dying. The more access I have around the Department, the shorter my life expectancy, right?”

“Well, don’t beat around the bush,” the Inspectre said, letting out a hearty laugh. “Perks aside, ‘doing good’ is supposed to be its own reward, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have free donuts and an elliptical machine. Ready?”

“Do you mind if I ask you more about the Fraternal Order of Goodness?” I asked. The Inspectre shook his head. “We’re the most-talked-about secret society I’ve ever heard of. Divisional managers like Wesker call the order a bunch of snobby do-gooders.”

“ ‘Dangerously underqualified’ is what we call blokes like him,” he said, then paused. “My boy, you don’t get to be Inspectre without learning to read people over the years. I can sense some kind of trouble with you, and I know what turmoil can do to a young agent.”

I looked up, drawn in by the kindness in his voice.

“I still don’t feel right about being in charge of Connor,” I said. “I mean, he is my mentor, after all. I just don’t know if I’m ready for this. And frankly, he’s touchy on a good day. Then there’s the responsibility of calling the shots . . . What if I make the wrong call and do something rash?”

I expected the Inspectre to try to reason with me, to quell my nerves or tell me to stop acting like such a child, possibly even a no-nonsense chiding.

“Well,” he said. He put down his towel and grinned. “There’s rash and then there’s rash , isn’t there?”

I cocked my head. “I don’t think I follow you, sir.”

“Well,” he said, “there are distinctions in the details, aren’t there? There is stupid rash and there is noble rash. Both can make you dead, I suppose, but one at least stands a chance of causing great heroics, yes? For instance, and this is all hypothetical, mind you . . . If I were in a position where I had a chance to take down something as dangerous as a vampire before the local government could even get through all the red tape, some might think it incredibly foolish of me to act upon that.”

I nodded. “Connor’s always telling me to keep an even head about things,” I said, “to not let my emotions get in the way, and to think clearly. But now I’ve got to worry about putting him in harm’s way as well.”

“Yes, well, Connor’s right in one sense when he talks about absolute clearheadedness. That is what works for Connor .” He poured himself a glass of water and began drinking. He leaned over, drawing conspiratorially close.

“You and I are men of action , Simon. So are the rest of the F.O.G.gies. Most people don’t understand that. Most people never will. Sometimes all we have to go with are our emotions. That may be the one thing that gives us an edge, the one thing that saves us all in the battle between good and evil, especially in the face of bureaucracy.”

I swallowed hard. I felt the pressure of failing coming on once again. I had vampires to deal with. The Inspectre clapped me on the back.

“Don’t worry yourself about it too much,” he said cheerfully. “If you die, at least you’ll die spectacularly. That’s the mark of a true hero.” He clapped me on the back. “Same time tomorrow?”

I nodded, thinking, And the day after and the day after . . . until I either become the most expert vampire slayer since Buffy or die trying.

I cleaned myself up after my training session and headed back down to the main floor. With the graveyard shift arriving, the offices were dead and of course Supply was closed, so after making a quick copy of the form I’d had Jane sign, I slid it under their door. Then I headed back out through the movie theater and into the coffee shop up front. With its bare brick walls, classic movie posters, and big, comfy, secondhand chairs, I thought it would be the perfect place to brood. I had seen many a dark literary writer gravitate to this place with their laptops, and once I had my coffee, I navigated through a sea of them until I found an unoccupied large purple chair to curl up in. I set my coffee down on a table in the center of a few other chairs, one of them occupied by Godfrey Candella. He was furiously writing away in one of his notebooks.

“You know, a laptop would be faster,” I said.

Godfrey looked up from his writing.

“Excuse me?” he said, somewhat distracted.

“A laptop,” I repeated. I gestured toward his pen and notebook. “It would be faster.”

“Ah,” he said, and his face lit up, “ but would it be as reliable?” He held up his notebook like he was displaying it on QVC. “The Moleskine notebook is a near-legendary form of record keeping, used by great minds for well over two centuries. Hemingway, Picasso, even Van Gogh . . .”

“My apologies,” I said, cutting off his little nerdgasm on the history of notebooks. I raised my coffee mug in salute. He did the same and we drank in silence for a moment, but it didn’t last long. Godfrey started flipping back through his notebook until he found whatever he was looking for.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few follow-up questions about what happened earlier today?” he asked. “The incident involving the Oubliette? I just wanted to clarify a few things.”

I sighed. Maybe helping Godfrey clarify his historical documents would help me with my own, or at the very least provide some form of distraction. Besides, I liked Godfrey, despite the quiet loneliness that radiated from him—or maybe because of it. I knew a thing or two about loneliness.

“Go ahead,” I said, settling back in my chair. “Shoot.”

“Great. Thanks.” Godfrey smiled and looked down at his notes. “So, earlier the Inspectre mentioned something about the Oubliette and you . . . ? Unfortunately, Director Wesker yelled about it so much at the time, I kind of missed what exactly happened.”

“It’s a wonder we ever get anything done around here with Wesker shouting,” I said. I couldn’t shake the image of his hand resting against Jane’s lower back. I tried to push it out of my mind by telling Godfrey Candella all the details I could remember about the incident at the Javits Center. It seemed to help. When I finished, I was no longer thinking about Jane and Wesker together, but instead about being swallowed up by a sea of rats and then being knee-deep in rat goo. Believe it or not, the nostalgia of being knee-deep in rat goo was a mental step-up.

Godfrey wrote frantically to keep up, and about a minute after I stopped speaking, he finally looked up. He pulled the pen out of his hand and flexed his fingers.