Redemption by Deek Rhew

Author:Deek Rhew [Rhew, Deek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781733897402
Publisher: Tenacious Books
Published: 2019-08-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Erebus stared out the window of Elon’s humble dwelling as he waited for darkness to chase away the sunlight. The businesses of the shitty little town closed at the first sign of dusk and, with the exception of the restaurant strip, the streets had mostly cleared of pedestrians.

As the ocean snuffed out the last few embers of day, he slipped into the night. Slinking along alleyways and skulking through the gloom between street lamps, he made his way across the sleepy city.

After hopping a fence at the rear of the surf shop, he paused, waiting for cries of alarm and challenges to his presence. Nothing broke the stillness except the occasional trundling of a car down the street and the annoying, relentless crashing of waves on the beach.

The beach and surfing. Surfing and partying. Partying and drinking. Drinking and sex. Ugh. These beatniks rankled him with their laid-back, frivolous lifestyles and their inconsequential existences.

Most of the population—case in point, the rodents of Alabaster Cove—had disregarded the moralistic intuition embedded in their genetic blueprints. The resulting human debris polluted the species and diluted the genetic pool with licentious behavior, weak spirits, and even weaker minds.

As improbable as it seemed, the souls of these heathens could still be redeemed. It just took someone willing and capable to step up and do the intricate wet work that no one else wanted to do. But a legion of Erebuses couldn’t cleanse them all. And every day, he faced the staggering task of shouldering a workload intended for hundreds.

Sighing over the injustice of his overwhelming burdens, he slid along the wall and stopped to press his ear against the door. Inside, a machine yowled like a pack of coyotes.

He grasped the knob and twisted. He’d expected it to be locked, but it turned easily in his grip. As he cracked the entrance open, a jaundiced blade of light sliced through the black of evening.

Erebus opened the door a little further, and the ruckus—maybe a sander or industrial vacuum—blasted his eardrums like an armada of trumpet players. He peered through the crack. Cans of paint and assorted chemicals lined the opposite wall, but a haphazard pile of woodworking materials blocked his view of the larger space.

Slipping inside, he closed the door and crouched behind a stack of lumber. His nerves itched, and his muscles tensed as he prepared to disable anyone who noticed him. But the machine kept running and no one called out.

He glanced around the corner and down the length of the workshop. Recognizable from the back by his long blond dreadlocks, tied tight in a thick ponytail, Max Fayl ran a large disk sander over a long plank of wood. He wore a heavy-duty pair of ear protectors and some sort of filter mask.

The scream of the tool reverberated through Erebus’ skull and vibrated the fillings in his teeth. Ignoring the discomfort, he scanned the rest of the workshop. The hippie surfer seemed to be working alone this evening.

Tyron scuttled around the corner, creeping up behind the shop owner.

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