Watchdog: A New Beginning
News papers and broadcasts alike were silent about the disappearance of the Watchdog. Crime was on the rise and there were even reports of masked villains taking claims of the city streets and businesses as their own hunting grounds. The police proved helpless and the citizens were left without a hero, unable to fend for themselves…
Eddy didn’t read the news. He chose not to hear the cries for help over the radio and tv, just as he chose to leave his heroism aside in the fears of becoming another criminal in a sea of evil. He felt no pride in his decision, and he had not felt the lifting happiness he had been fighting for by running, but a heavy weight of responsibility and anxiety had lifted off of him. He had never felt so free in years, but forgetting past hurts and achievements was not something that could just be done by choice, as much as one might try.
Eddy’s heart burned, but again he told himself it was not due to his crushed trust and past struggles, but just the strain of running through the mountainous trails. The cold rush across his skin wasn’t the regret of leaving the weak to fight an unwinnable battle, but the cold breeze untouched yet by morning’s light. Eddy explained every pain and every discomfort away with his early morning exercises, always starting with a run before dawn. Some saw his decision to run with no shirt or shoes to be a sign of a show off. Even with the countless scars decorating his body with discolored lines and mad patterns, his body was well trained and toned enough to model for some crazy underwear company. In truth, he wore neither shirt nor shoes because he wanted to be chilled to numbness, and he wanted the stones to scrape at his soles and the grasses to itch at his heels, wishing the pain would overcome his ever vigilant memories.
After an hour of running, Eddy woke up with a dive into an icy pond. After swimming under a mild waterfall on the far end of the lake, Eddy would start to climb. He tried to force his mind away from his past, but as he gripped a stone an image of a fire escape ladder came into mind. As he pulled himself, pushing against the spray of the water pouring down over his shoulders, his mind painted for him the falling dirty rain of the city. Howls of wind turned into wailing sirens, fresh moss and decaying greens became the acrid mold surrounding an apartment building.
The mutt panted hard as he reached the top of the falls, crawling onto a steady boulder holding strong against the flowing current of the creek. His knuckles were white with strain and his heart beat quickly for his haunting visions. He hated his own memories, and he hated how hard he worked his body to forget them. It felt like he was training like he had before dawning his cursed mask, but now he trained only to beat away the shadows of his past mistakes. As he opened his eyes onto the first rays of the rising sun, Eddy swore he felt the tightening of the mask across his face, the sight of faceless enemies surrounding him gifted only to his eyes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“13.50, you wanna lotto ticket today?” Eddy almost felt the twinge of surprise at how little things could change halfway across the country. The same smell of stale soda syrup drying on the floor and a light overtone of gasoline and 3 hour old hotdogs hung in the air as this middle aged stoner with half a head of shoulder length hair stared past him speaking in a scratched monotone voice. It was familiar to the point of wanting to throw up, and it almost made it worse when he remembered that this was where he was buying his bread, jug of water, jerky sticks, and one of those all too old hotdogs.
The mutt sighed, scratching at his two week growth of stubbly beard as he grabbed some disposable razors off of the nearby shelf. “No, but add this on. I’ll pay credit.” The register rung as it quickly opened and shut with the transaction, and the clerk slowly bagged everything up. “Can I eat the hotdog here? It’s raining out, and I only have my bike.”
“Yeah, whatever man, just don’t loiter too long or my manager will throw a bitch fit.”
Eddy nodded and took his bag, tying the top closed as he took his hot dog, the first hot meal he’s had in weeks, and walked over towards the magazine rack. Two days and he already missed the woods. It was so quiet there and there was hardly a soul to bother you. Plans already swam through his head of when he would return with a larger supply of canned food and jugged water, but the obnoxious ding of the convenient store slapped him out of his planning. He took half of the hot dog in one bite, the ketchup watery and already soaked into the bun which stuck to his hand and the meat itself, but the heat of the grease at least felt relaxing to his mouth. He chewed as he glanced over the shelves of the small gas station store, watching a thin Siamese cat slip in from the rain, a large damp zip up hoody making him look even thinner than he was. The cat looked around almost nervously, tempting Eddy to squat down and watch from between the shelves. Something wasn’t right here.
The boy couldn’t be over 20, and he lowered his hood to show a thin tattoo that crossed his cheek looking like a bird’s wing. Glancing around again, he took no notice to the clerk as he was asked what he wanted. Cracking his neck to the side, the kid pulled a small revolver out of his pocket and pointed it right to the clerks head!
“Money, now! Don’t think man, or you’re dead!” The cat looked crazed and high, the clerk quickly putting up his hands and trying his best to quickly open the drawers.
Eddy didn’t even think as he grabbed quietly for on of the many large snow globes that lined the bottom shelf he was by. A sharp twist of his wrist and he heard a snap of plastic and glue, now holding just the heavy glass sphere behind his back, ready to throw. He stopped himself, watching as the common thief grabbed over the counter to grab a stack of lotto tickets and the cash he could reach before running back out into the rain. Eddy watched him run, and he heard no engine nor squeal of tired, and he saw no lights, showing that he either ran or had a simple bike. He stood up and walked back to the man behind the counter, the snow globe balanced back on it’s broken stand.
He cleared his throat as he looked back towards the door. “Uh, are you okay?”
The clerk cussed loudly, pulling a bit at his long hair. “Dude, I’m going to loose my fuckin JOB over this, man… Why didn’t you do anything, man, you could said something, he’d probably go away. He thought I was alone, and now he took the fuckin shit and ran! Man…”
Eddy grabbed his plastic bag once again and finished off his hotdog in a second bite. “Sorry, guess I shoulda done something.” He knew he was lying to himself and the man as he said that, knowing in his heart that if he had fought he would be going back to what he had been before. It was none of his business now. The clerk would call the police, they’ll check the footage, they’ll search for the kid, and they’ll either catch him or not. Whatever happened, it was out of his hands.
Riding a bike in the rain wasn’t as hard for Eddy as it was for others, having spent weeks out in the woods with little shelter from the elements to speak of. The thin tires sliced through puddles as he raced down the street, the yellow flickering streetlights showing off the graffiti lined walls and trashed alleys of the deep inner city, but none of this affected the mutt at all, knowing that soon he’d be in a cold bed at a local motel he had found that rents by the week.
The bike scraped to a halt as Eddy closed his eyes and bit his lip. He wish he hadn’t seen what he knew he had, but his nature wouldn’t let him just leave everything be. He turned his bike around and parked on the sidewalk, leaning it against the wall as he walked to the mouth of the alley, letting his eyes fall on a duo of punks counting stolen money.
The thin Siamese was almost jumping in place and shaking his hands, his hoody tossed into an open dumpster, its sleeve hanging out collecting the dripping rain from the worn gutters high above. He was laughing as a thicker brown house cat with half an ear missing piled the money in two stacks, an unlit cigar crushed between his teeth making his second hand black sports coat and ripped jeans almost look fancy in comparison. As Eddy got closer, the thuggish looking cat lifted his eyes, tempting the kid to do the same.
“Hey, the fuck are you? Beat it, ass-hat.” The kid obviously was suspicious from the start and way looking for more trouble. In his own head, he was invincible. Fresh from a successful theft and feared by all. It’s almost too bad he didn’t know who he was yelling at, and if Eddy could play his cards right, he’d never have to know.
“Hey, I’m just passing through. Uh…” The mutt stopped halfway down the alley and scratched his head, trying to think of how to phrase his thoughts. Nothing was really coming to mind that didn’t seem stupidly direct. “Look, that money doesn’t belong to you guys. I don’t want to call the cops or anything, so why don’t you just bring it back?”
The kid sneered and stuck his tongue out, pulling the small revolver out of his pants pocket and aimed right at Eddy’s chest. “You think you got the balls to say that again, gramps?”
“Dude, I’m 24.”
“Retard, then. Obviously you’re a bit mental if you think I’m just gonna give this money up. You got no proof it ain’t mine, and my little friend here says you ain’t gonna be takin it for yourself.”
Eddy tilted his head and squinted a little as he looked at the gun in the kid’s hand. “Uh, you know you can see into the chambers of a revolver, right? It’s not even loaded. Are you gonna click me to death, or what?”
The kid hesitated, his face loosing a bit of the arrogant twang it had only seconds before. He stood for a few seconds holding his pose, but took a little peek at his gun, turning it to see that you could indeed see all of the empty chambers of the gun. He tossed it aside into a puddle and went into his other pocket, pulling out a gold butterfly, flicking out it’s blade and holding it up instead. “You gotta lotta balls and not a lotta brains if you think I’m gonna let you take my money.”
“I don’t WANT your money. I want you to give it back to the clerk.”
“Fuck you man!” The kid ran at Eddy, but stopped halfway towards him. He hesitated, hoping that Eddy would turn and run, but the mutt didn’t move, his nose dripping from the rain as his eyes focused on the kid’s knife wielding hand. After waiting for another second, the kid lunged forward with the knife.
Eddy could have easily just stepped out of the way and let the kid dance a while to see what he was up against, but he didn’t have the time or patience. He wasn’t in this to teach the kid a lesson; he was in it to just get the money back. The thugs didn’t deserve the money they stole, and he wanted it back, so he caught the thin white knuckled hand and pushed down as he held his forearm, bending his wrist painfully down.
“Ah! Fuck!! Let go man!”
“Drop the knife.” The first sign of a struggle and Eddy was through, flexing his arm quickly. The snap seemed to echo in the alley and he could feel the bone break under his hand. As soon as the knife hit the ground, Eddy let the boy go, watching him stumble back in shock and pain, gripping his broken wrist. The larger thug was already on his way, fist drawn back, so Eddy kicked the knife back and readied himself to take the blow.
As the cat’s fist struck his raised arm, Eddy threw his hand quickly forward, catching the thug’s throat with his thumb. A moment of hesitation gave Eddy enough time to grab the back of the Cat’s head by his hair, pulling him forward into a head butt to the forehead, and then finished him quickly with a hard kick in the chest. The kick sent him crashing over a trashcan, but he had lost his full consciousness the moment his head was struck. Now a moaning heap on the floor, Eddy found he could let the police deal with the rest.
He didn’t listen or care for the curses and screams from the kid, and used his own shoe laces to tightly tie his ankle to a lowered fire escape ladder. Using the thug’s own cell phone, he called 911 and grumbled the cross streets and left the phone on the line, letting the confused operator decide herself to send a squad car over. They should already be looking for the punk who robbed the convenient store, so after pocketing the money and wrapping the wet revolver in the trashed hoody and leaving it on the sleeping thug, Eddy left, feeling he’d done enough to help the police in whatever they needed.
Eddy couldn’t return the money, nor could he really leave it. Either way it would draw attention to himself as a hero, and that was exactly what he had been trying to put behind him. Instead he went back to his motel room and found an envelope. He addressed it to a po box back in his home town, and left it in a corner mailbox before taking his shower and getting to bed. He couldn’t wait to be back in the forest, away from all of this again.
