Friday Five April 24

Words: increase retire dairy hiccup verdict

Anthony watched the end of the clip. He saw the tiny thin, defeated man with long, lank dreadlocks, being led away in handcuffs. It was always painful to see and he hated that the local station wanted to make a spectacle of him. 

The jury is expected to reach a verdict quickly in the Lester Solomon case.

Anthony shoved his phone back in his pocket. He’d had enough. And he knew the  man was innocent. The increase in crime wasn’t just a social problem; Anthony know knew there were other, darker forces at work. He didn’t have access to a car at the moment so he’d taken the bus into town and walked down the streets. Paranormal investigations was not an easy job to do without a car, so he needed to fix that soon. How? He didn’t know since paranormal investigation and ghost hunting didn’t pay either. 

Losing his car was a bit of a hiccup in his long term goals, but he wouldn’t give up.

The Main Street  had been gentrified. People who moved from New York to the south to retire quickly got bored with the lack of high arts culture and fine dining in Coverton County so young entrepreneurs had moved in to fill the gap. The place he was looking for was an old converted dairy distribution factory. They’d kept the look but turned it into one of those boutique, hip eateries with lots of overpriced food, now called Cow-don Bleu.

He walked in and took a look around. A family of four sitting at a side table. A couple looking over a menu, sitting close.  And over in the corner Anthony noticed him.

Other people in the corner wouldn’t pay much attention, but Anthony had learned what to look for. The man had a hat pulled low over his head, and the hair was shaved down but it didn’t change the fact that he was the spitting image of the man hauled away in handcuffs. Others at some point may remark on the similarity but this was more. He  was Lester Solomon -or rather his  fetch- created out of hair and twine and made all too real. He saw the telltale mark on his forearm which others might dismiss as a simple tattoo. But most importantly he ‘felt’ the lack of humanness. He was the second fetch Anthony had found. There was a nest of them were out there and a real Lester’s survival depended on him finding them all.

To be continued…at some point.

Copyright Echo ishii 2021