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Short story I'm working on now -- Heavy Poe influence
Give me some opinions here. I started this story a while ago after reading a lot of Poe over the summer, and it's quite obvious that it influenced this. So anyway, I sort of lost focus with this story. I'm not too sure where I want it to end. But let me know what you think so far.
It was the most deplorably despicable act I had ever seen in all my years. Some kind of contrived, gross, horrid perversion. How a mind could conceive such a thing, let alone carry it out in all its audacity and vulgarity, was beyond the scope of my mind.
Five years and 36 days ago, in 1902, May 5, George Mason walked down a dank, shadowy alley off of a backstreet, not even a main road to begin with. It was the kind of alley that makes one look over the shoulder anticipating an ambush when in reality it is simply a rat scurrying along to make a living for himself; just like all of us these days it seems. He had a particular purpose in coming here. He had no need to fear an ambush. He was too cautious, too careful, too paranoid to get caught. There was a boy, a small boy, he had been tailing for days. These many days were necessary if he was to be cautious, and careful. After all, he was paranoid.
He stepped slowly, deliberately, down the alley. He had to make sure that he could negotiate this safely. He had to make sure he would not draw any suspicion. A noble, a baron at that, would draw many wandering eyes-and hands-in a place like this. He did, however, have himself dressed in tattered clothes to blend in more easily. He looked up, squinting. The sun was just barely starting to rise, and although it was still low, the heat was beginning to stifle him in his appraisal of the alley, as a breeze could not siphon off the main boulevard to as far back as he was. He stepped back behind some brick rubble at the end of the alley, remnants of its back wall’s construction.
He did not have to wait long. He was too well prepared to have to wait long. For any normal man the next few minutes would have seemed to crawl by like hours. But he was too well prepared to feel apprehensive. The door positioned below the brass numbers 125 popped open. A bright young, exuberant face followed suit, a scraggly mop of brown hair atop his head.
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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
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