So Much Promise...

“I thought I’d find you here.”

He jumped, then, embarrassed, turned to find Lester standing beside him. The fool was still dressed in his Halloween get up. All black leather and queer eyes.

Why hadn’t he noticed him come in? Ah well, didn’t matter. “Good evening,” he said icily, watching the little idiot standing beside him, a cheery smile on his stupid face.

“Yes, lovely evening.” And, without for an invitation, he slid into the seat opposite Morris. “Enjoying the show?” He waved airily at the street beyond the plate glass window.

“I would hardly refer to this as a show,” Morris said, though that’s exactly what he’d been thinking. “This a tragic event. A human being has lost his …or her . . . life out there.”

“Well, that’s way it looks.” Lester seemed unfazed by the rebuke. He gazed dreamily out the window. “But, I’d bet you a donut that they’ll discover the murder took place somewhere else. Then the body was dropped here. For some reason.”

Morris felt a little chill.

Lester seemed to remember where he was. “Anyway, I wanted to track you down before I left the campus. I have something for you.”

“What . . . do you have?”

“This.” He produced a bundle of papers. “This is the material you were paying me to collect from the archive. I thought I’d pass it on.”

Morris took the documents gingerly. “What are they?”

“Copies of originals and my transcriptions.”

“Original what?” Morris was feeling more than little mystified.

“Decuir . . . your mass murderer, remember him? . . . well, it turns out he did automatic writing. Ever hear of automatic writing?”

“Of course.”

“Well, Decuir turned out scads of it. He’s got pages and pages of the stuff in his files. I copied a bunch and, well, sort of translated it for you. The originals aren’t easy to read.”

Morris put the papers down on the table in front of him and started to read. “What is all this?”

“Mostly quotes from famous literary works. It seems your good Doctor Decuir had a taste for the gothic. There’s stuff from Marlow’s Faustus, Poe stories, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner . . . you know, the part where the dead sailors get up and walk.

Morris made some vague disgusted sound and put the papers aside. “Anything else? I mean, of genuine value?”

“Nope. Not a bit. Your Decuir was one boring boy, I’m afraid to say. Not a single blood stained scalpel or pickled eyeball to be found in any of the boxes. Sad, really.”

“Sad?”

“Tragic. So much promise. So few slaughtered.”