Ascendant
December 20, 2015 Grantville, West Virginia
Micheal Stearns sighed as the town librarian turned
and stalked away, her heavy tread making crunching sounds
in the snow.
Being mayor to a small town wasn't exactly what he was
cut out to be. The fact that it was not so small anymore since
the nano-factory came into town was a big factor in that.
Balancing budgets and having rows with city council was
definitely not his preferred way of spending the holidays.
The fact that the town's most frightening individual
probably just killed several people and dumped their bodies
somewhere was not something he was up to facing.
He just shook his head and followed an old Hummer as
it cruised past out into the outskirts of town. Steph must
have converted it to biogas or something chemical for no
one had ever seen her pull-up at the local charging station
and it still belched a few fumes.
Shaking his head, Mike went inside of Grantville's
police station. As he walked to Dan Frost's office, he
thought of his "little" problem.
From what he remembered, Stephanie Granger was
a good kid. A bit spacy and caught up in all those Japanese
cartoons that was all the rage in the early 2000s but still
a young lady who had a smile for everyone and had a bright
future ahead of her. She wanted to be an architect.
Her parents had sent her off to WVU for an education.
And that was when she dropped off the face of the earth.
Mike halted his stroll down memory lane as he knocked
on door to the Sheriff's office.
"Come on in, Mike."
Accepting the invitation, he let himself in.
Dan stood up from his desk and shook his hand.
"Any luck?"
Mike shook his head and slumped into the available
chair.
"Nope. She just glares at me. I think I just had my
holidays ruined, you know."
The white-haired sheriff chuckled. Mike sighed.
"I'm not joking. Becky finds out about this...
I don't know why my wife treats Steph like a saint but
she'd kick me out of the house if she heard I was blaming
her for anything like this."
Rebecca Stearns was a tough woman and, as far as
Mike was concerned, too good for him. God knows what sort of
cosmic disturbance brought about their coming together.
"Anyway, Mike, here's Steph's file."
Mike blinked owlishly behind his wire-frames.
"You seriously have a file on her?"
"A hobby of mine."
Mike smirked. Local urban legends about the "one-eyed
Stiff" had been making the rounds since a few months after
Steph had came back from wherever she disappeared to. He
didn't think Dan had taken all those stories of mysterious
disappearances and murdered travellers and late library book
returnees seriously. He scoured the table but all he could
see were folders upon folders upon folders.
"Where is it?"
It was now Dan's turn to smirk.
"Everything on the table."
*******
I've actually been working on this for _years_ now - I've only set this to writing solidly in the past few days.
It's technically a Drunkard's Walk type of thing - world-walking without the self-insert factor - and lots of meta.
More later.