The hearty rumble of an 84’ Chevy filled the cool morning air, engine idling as Achaius shifted it into park. New town, new starts. Though this particular locale seemed more a city. With the incident at the hotel faded to sit in the back of his mind, the encounter an unusual way to begin anew, Achaius palmed the circumference of the steering wheel.The vehicle had been with him for eight years? Maybe more? The one prior had been a 79’. Both faithful and reliable in their service.
He figured it was probably 0700 by now. Two hours spent searching for the young woman the elder one had lost. He could only hope whatever restlessness caused young one to run, could be abated. As a coroner he’d had a number of missing persons turn up in his morgue. Some deaths more interesting than others. Bemused, he glanced up. Peering past his windshield to lend the quaint two-story a quick study. The man at the register mentioned the place, offered the suggestion when he asked after getting a bite to eat. Not a particularly conspicuous building he thought.
A heavy shoulder and a tugged latch opened the door, the hinges creaking a bit. Wear from the road he figured, and made note then to purchase lubricant as he caught it by the window frame and swung it shut. Head down, he started toward the awning fetching his cigarettes from the leather flight jacket he wore. One before his meal. And, maybe, if he could find the materials, he’d roll some of his own later. He couldn’t remember, exactly, when he last had one rolled.
Beneath the awning, he stood facing the street. One hand in the pocket of his jacket, the other scissoring the cigarette he’d lit on the way over. Olive eyes studied the lane before him, following it out to the larger road to gauge and consider the traffic that passed through the area. There appeared to be a certain nostalgia about the area. One that, perhaps, kept the neighbourhoods quiet even as light traffic funneled in to escort employees to their work places. He’d ask after a map once he was inside. The Detour had them, he’d been told, but the last had either been passed to a patron preceding him --or the clerk had been too lazy to get one.
He continued to smoke his cigarette in peace. The ember climbed the stick with each pull, and puffs of condensation mingled with smoke on the exhale. What would the city hold for him, he wondered? His daughter, at the very least --tracked through field agents he assisted. A means of restoring his wife, and the very most. If the tales of the city told on the road were anything to go by...
