It's the Sudden Stop...

by Adam J. Whitlatch

Freddie is running; running as fast as his legs – already burning from the exertion – can carry him up the stairs toward the roof, his sound of his boots thumping on the steel-grate steps echoing through the concrete stairwell. He pauses a moment to listen, and grins when he hears absolute silence below him and opens the door leading to the roof, but as he crosses the threshold a pair of strong, callused hands grab him by the lapels and Freddie barely catches a fleeting glimpse of glowing emerald eyes before he finds himself dangling over the edge of the city’s tallest building by the flimsy cloth of his jacket. A voice cuts through the darkness and pushes his desperate pleas aside, demanding to be heard, the clicking of razor-sharp fangs punctuating every word like a guilty verdict, “You killed that old man and his granddaughter for eleven dollars and thirty-seven cents, Freddie... she was six!” “Please,” screams Freddie, his fingers clawing at the leather sleeves of the man’s long black coat, the tails of which flutter around them in the cold January air like the frantic flapping of ravens’ wings, “I’ll turn myself in to the cops, I promise, just please don’t kill me!” “I’m not going to kill you, Freddie,” says the man, and Freddie sighs with relief, but his sigh turns to a scream as the powerful fingers release his jacket and he begins to fall away, the man’s glowing eyes slowly fading into tiny green pinpricks in the darkness. “But the fall might,” whispers The Blood Raven as he rises to his feet and listens to the fading – and abruptly silenced – screams of Freddie the Freak before turning to walk back to the stairwell; justice has been served once again, and Ash Corvus carries the weight of vengeance on his soul.

6S

Adam J. Whitlatch is the creator of Ash Corvus, the protagonist of the novel The Blood Raven: Retribution. He is also the author of numerous short stories as well as the novel-in-progress E.R.A. – Earth Realm Army. His complete works on 6S can be found here.