3 comments/ 9233 views/ 3 favorites Missed Appointment By: beatriceguy First let me say thanks to my volunteer editor Kjplotts, second this is a LONG non-erotic story. So if that's what you're looking for you should keep on looking. Also any fair comments are always welcome. * Being careful, as was his habit, to always keep a discreet distance from the events unfolding in front of him, the completely nondescript man observing the proceedings was again struck by a familiar thought. Funerals are always so depressing, don't you think? People gather, friends and family, individuals who might not have seen each other in years have to now come together to pay their last respects to whom the observer thought of as the lucky bastard about to go in the ground. At least paying their respects is what the participants of these ceremonies usually tell other people that they are doing, if they are asked about it at least. . Hell, he thought with a snort of amusement, they might even tell the same story to themselves. After having witnessed so many of these sad displays, the observer had come to believe something closer to the truth would be that these people came to this funeral today in some sort of collective unspoken agreement between them so that when there time eventually comes, as he knew it inevitably would, someone will hopefully come to their funeral, since there is nothing sadder in this whole sad spectacle than having a funeral with no one in attendance but the stiff as he well knew. . In this one instance anyway the deceased needn't have worried; there was a good turnout. She must have been popular, he thought with a shrug, of course it didn't hurt that it was a bright sunny day which always helped with the attendance, even though no matter what the weather and even if going to a funereal was depressing, being here was still better than being at work. In fact on a second look at some of the people milling around the cemetery afterward, at least some perhaps even most of them appeared to be looking like they were genuinely sad. The observer could relate to their apparent grief in this one rare case anyway that while he hadn't really known her well or really at all, he was in his own way sad to see her go. It was always sad to see the young die even if he was more than a little conflicted since for while he hadn't wanted her to die, not really; he did long more than anything for that experience himself. Of course another source of his conflicted emotions in this case was that he was in a way partly responsible for what had happened. The older pastor who had led the graveside service went through the motions and said the usual things about the short time we have on earth and how we need to make use of every moment. Considering that phrase for a moment, the man observing the scene knew better than most that some people have a far shorter time than others. But the pastor still spouted the usual sort of condescending generic crap they always say about someone that they didn't know and really couldn't care less about one way or another. . This was just a job to him like towing a car or fixing a drain; just another day at the office. . But still so much had changed recently and for someone who usually measured change at the pace of a glacier, the last few weeks had been more than a little unsettling; but it happens like that sometimes, he mused to himself; things can sometimes move so quickly, as if you look away for just a moment the whole world will change and you're suddenly running around playing catch up. The observer could identify just when the world had started to change. It all started less than a month ago, it was all so clear to him now, the chain of events that led to them all being here today. Of course even if you see changes occurring you can't know where they will lead, not really; it's not like a train wreck or something when you can see what bad thing was going to happen and try to either do something about it or just get the hell out of the way. Cold hard reality just doesn't work that way. It's only with hind sight that the events really become clear and you can see where it all went wrong; where you'd gone wrong. . Being human you always tell yourself, in what's almost a reflex action, things like it wasn't really your fault or that next time it will be different and you'll be ready then but you never are, not really; such is life, ever onward always onward. That thought brought on a very deep sigh. Missed Appointment After deciding to go for it Holly was faced with a problem. Since normally she would have used Tami's help with this kind of research but if she included her now, Roger would almost certainly find out since he seemed to have quit a knack for knowing what was going on. In that case he would either tell her to drop it which she didn't want to do or he would take the story away from her which she really didn't want him to do. No, Holly decided with certainty she needed more to build on before she could take it to Roger and still be sure he would let her keep it. . So once the rape/murder was ready for airing she cut Tami loose and told her to go home while she stayed to start her latest pet project. One good thing about working at a TV station was that Holly had access to just about every news outlet there was and she didn't have to pay for any of it. This fact was also always a plus in her book. . Since the guy in question seemed to have a thing for violent crime, she concentrated only on stories where someone had died; it seemed like a good place to start. . Unfortunately this still left a lot of ground to cover. A lot of the less reparable of the online sites don't put the names of the photographer with the photo's they took so she couldn't go by that since after all that would make things too simple not that he couldn't have used an alias anyway of course, as Holly well knew. They didn't get called bottom feeders for nothing. . Facing the small mountain of video and still digital photo's of the almost unimaginably wide variety of grisly scenes of death and destruction to sort through, Holly realized she still had to cut the search down to a more manageable size to have any luck at all. She finally did this by first concentrating on times when both she and whoever it was had been on the same shoot at the same time going back over a year. That helped out a lot. She then started pulling good still images from the video tonight and started comparing faces. After hours of searching and the beginnings of a throbbing headache, Holly had at last narrowed it down to a likely candidate. Of course there were always the shots of backs of heads, the sides of faces, and that sort of thing so there were others she wasn't sure of but at least she had somewhere to start and it seemed like this guy got around. She was more than a little surprised to see how many times the two of them had crossed paths without her even noticing him. After getting another cup of old coffee she considered her next move. Since she now had a face, Holly could try contacting various web sites and see if she could get them to provide a name to match. But the young reporter knew better than to hold her breath on that one since after all they might not even know who this guy really is. Even if they did, would they be willing to share that information with her? So after sipping her coffee for a time Holly decided on another course, since time really wasn't an issue in this search, she ran off the best print of the face she had and decided she'd keep it with her to help her stay on the look out for her mystery man the next time they were both at a crime scene. . Surprisingly enough it only took a few days before Holly caught site of her mystery man. Unfortunately by the time she actually saw him, the two women were back at the station editing the video from another murder. . With everything that had been going on at the scene Holly had completely missed him at the time but there he was, standing with his camera. She checked the web sites she'd flagged as working with him and sure enough shots from the murder tonight were already posted. She couldn't help but grin at the realization that the chase was on! A week later she got another chance, it was at the scene of a suspected attack on a homeless man. There had been a series of these attacks that were similar in nature but like the others there were no witnesses and no one was talking. Someone usually just stumbled across a body that was been beaten to a pulp. There had been only one survivor so far but he was in a vegetative state and not expected to recover. Like many metropolitan area's Holly's hometown had a long running problem with the homeless that had been simmering for a long time, but now it was starting to look like it could be finally coming up to a boil. When Holly caught sight of her target photographer that night she hadn't even been really looking for him at that moment; she'd in fact been thinking about ten different things none of which had anything to do with her pet project. But suddenly there he was, just standing right in front of her. . The whole thing surprised her so much she didn't know what to do for a moment. . Holly really hadn't thought about how she could approach him with a hope of actually getting anywhere. . Should she really try talking to him now or wait to get more information first? Hell she didn't even know his name and with that thought it suddenly sank in just how unprepared she really was for this. If she had been this sloppy in a scheduled interview, Roger would have chewed her ass and he would have been right to do it. After debating the situation over with herself for a moment she decided to wait, in the hope of perhaps gathering more information before she approached him. Anyway that's how Holly justified the decision; she wasn't in fact chickening out but she needed more information first so she was properly prepared. Yes that's what she was doing she told herself, and even managed to make it sound convincing. Later back at the station it surprisingly didn't take too many tries to get the information she wanted, she contacted a few people she knew in the paparazzi world and after e-mailing the picture she had of the man in question around, she learned quite a lot about him. . Most of the people in this line of work didn't like to talk about what they did at least not to an outsider all that much, whether it was fear of giving away what they considered trade secrets or maybe they just liked working in the shadows. But since holly was in the news business herself it helped her get the information she wanted. That is when she finally convinced them that she wasn't interested in what they were doing with the celebrities or whatever but was really interested in crime scene photos instead. Most of them did from time to time but it wasn't as a cut throat business as the true paparazzi. In any case this guy seemed to be a real outsider even by their standards. The first thing she learned was that his name was John Collins, and like she suspected he worked as more or less a freelance photographer. He would shoot pictures for just about anyone that would pay him but he did seem to specialize in the more gruesome side of the business, like murder. If someone was dead then he was interested but he generally stayed away from the more celebrity side of the paparazzi business. Even though she knew from experience that's where you made the real money. However no one she talked to seemed too really know how long he'd been in the business, it just seemed that he'd always been there. One of those people that were always hanging around but no one really noticed. . About the only thing that made him stand out was his seeming talent for getting to crime scenes first. Everyone agreed Mr. Collins had a real talent for that. Otherwise he looked ordinary enough to her she thought from the captured video images, if a little low rent what with the threadbare jacket. Whatever he was making he sure wasn't spending it on clothes, she decided though Holly really didn't know what she should have expected. . Ever since she had been a little girl Holly had always wanted to be an investigative journalist but now that she had a real interesting case to investigate she found herself hesitating. She knew that if her investigation was going to move forward she had to take the next step and in this case that step seemed to be trying to reach out to this man and make some kind of contact. But she still hesitated...was she really afraid of failure she wondered to herself? Or was it something else? Holly wasn't sure but she knew that she was going to have to bite the bullet at some point. . From the few good pictures she had of him he looked like he was in his thirties but she couldn't get anymore from the online sites that would even talk to her about him. She did find that someone with that name that had worked as a stringer photographer for the local papers but that was over 40 years earlier. Ironically there wasn't actually a picture of that guy on file. But Holly knew that there was no way this could be the same man the ages just didn't add up, maybe it had been a relative she wondered? Just another question she would have to ask him when she decided it was time. But when would that be? A few days later still in the midst of her procrastination she saw him again at yet another accident scene. She'd been running late again and had just met Tami there in her own car. After getting the video they needed, Holly settled on making what could have been considered a rash decision, that since she had her own transportation available, she would take the opportunity and follow him. . She told Tami to get back to the station with the footage they had just shot to get started working on it and that she'd catch up with her friend later. Tami was understandably curious about what was going on but Holly put her off and just told her to get going before Roger started calling and bitching. Now with Tami on her way, Holly did her best to blend in with the crowd and keep an eye on him. He hung around the scene for a time, then left in what to even her inexperienced eyes could only be described as an old junker car. Holly really didn't know what she was doing but was determined to find out more about this enigmatic man she had stumbled across. . While following behind him in her red Honda, she found the experience left her with even more questions for he didn't seem to go anywhere; he just drove around the city. . After following him for what seemed like a long time and not getting anywhere Holly was trying to deicide what to do. But while this was gong on she had let her attention wander a bit and found suddenly she'd lost him traffic. Frantically looking around the dark streets for the old car he was driving she couldn't find it anywhere it was like he'd just vanished. Muttering a few curses at her own bad luck Holly, as promised, returned to the station to help Tami with the video. After her failed attempt at tailing him it took her a few days to catch sight of him again. In the hope of increasing the odds of success the next time she'd taken to driving her own car to the various places the two women were shooting video as often as possible. . She'd told Tami that it was because she might want to get out of there a little early and in that case, Tami was quite capable of doing any work on the video that needed to be done. She never said it in so many words but she let her friend believe that she was in fact seeing someone and wanted some privacy. Of course it never occurred to secret agent Holly that her investigation hadn't gone unnoticed. . John didn't watch much TV so he didn't recognize her from that but it was clear what was going on as he watched her do her thing with her camera women or whatever they call them in the new politically correct times he found himself in. The week before he'd realized someone was tailing him, at first he wasn't sure who it was. He usually didn't attract too much attention and he liked it that way but now someone for some reason had taken an interest. During his drive through the city that night he managed to get a look at the driver of the red car that was on his tail and to his surprise he saw it was the young reporter or whatever from the accident scene he'd just been at that night. . Once he knew who it was he relaxed a bit and at first decided that if she really wanted to follow him around that was fine with him. But finally after thinking it over for a moment and seeing she was still back there, John decided he wanted to change tactics and have a little talk with this woman who was showing so much interest in him. If for no other reason than to know just exactly what was going on. After considering it for a moment he'd decided to lead her into a more secluded part of town and then confront her and see what happens. Unfortunately by the time he'd decided all that he looked back to find that she was gone. After looking all around in a vain attempt to find her car John found he was only mildly irritated by this turn of events for he'd watched enough reporter types over the years to know that she'd be back. On the other hand though maybe it was time to move on again; he'd been here for almost 10 years this time and maybe that was long enough. He'd had a good run here but John had to admit one of the reasons he didn't want to leave was that he'd have to start all over again with building up his contacts as well as get his job back under a new name. He really hated doing that; it was just such a hassle. . He tried to lay low for a couple of days in the off chance that just maybe she'd get tired of the little game they seemed to be playing and move on. But he doubted it. Then one evening he got a message from one of the internet sites that there was a major fire downtown and they wanted him down there to get whatever shots he could, so here he was. The fire was in a multistory apartment building that was an old converted office building if he wasn't mistaken; there were even a row of shops on the ground floor all nicely high-end for the upwardly mobile. He remembered it was all part of the downtown redevelopment deal that the city had been working on, off and on for years. . John could still remember these building when they were being built and now seeing them as run down shells only to be rebuilt again into something new was a real reminder, if an unnecessary one, of just how long he'd been around. . Shaking off the shades of the past John reminded himself that he was here on business, not for a trip down memory lane, and he had to admit that the fire was pretty spectacular; the pictures would hopefully fetch a nice fee. Even if he wouldn't find what he was really looking tonight he still had a job to do and a job was a job because if he did have to start over somewhere else, he'd need all the money he could get to do it. Unfortunately for John luck wasn't with him in another regard either since he found himself once again face to face with his young admirer. She'd seen him too, he was sure of it; in fact, she'd seen him first. Well here we go again, he thought with a sigh. After he'd gotten the pictures of the fire he needed to satisfy his current employers it was time to go. Deciding it was time to move this little dance the two of them had been doing along, John, without being too obvious, moved to his car and made sure she had enough time to follow if she wanted. He then left and headed into the city. . He made sure to go slowly at first since he didn't want to lose her again, at least not yet. Holly counted it as real stroke of luck to run into her mystery man again so soon. Though she supposed she shouldn't have; after all he was a photographer and such a big fire was real news. . The whole downtown area had really come back to life over the last ten years or so. She'd even gotten coffee once or twice in the little trendy coffee house in the building that was currently going up in smoke. It was really too bad, Holly did feel a little sorry for it all but also knew that she and Tami had gotten some really great footage of the event. But seeing Collins leaving, Holly knew she had to act fast. On impulse she again told Tami to get some more shots and she meet up with her back at the station later to do some voice over for the edit. When Tami questioned her about the change in plan Holly just told her that she had somewhere she needed to be and not too worry about it. Holly knew her friend well enough that she didn't need any help to get the shots they wanted but she also knew that Tami would be questioning her about this continued change in routine later. . After getting clear of the immediate area of the fire, Holly did her best to keep her quarry in sight. This time around the guy didn't seem to want to wander around the city for no apparent reason. Instead he headed into a less than great neighborhood, apparently completely oblivious to her presence, parked his old car and walked into an unimpressive looking apartment building. Holly waited out front not really sure what to do now. She'd seen a light come on in one of the apartments and could even see him moving around inside. . But now what should she do? Inside John was asking himself much the same question. He'd led the girl back to his apartment on a whim just so she could see how unremarkable he really was and maybe she'd go away. He should have known that he'd never get that lucky. . Peeking out the window he could see her just sitting out there like she was a cop on a stake out or something but if she wouldn't leave of her own volition what should he do? Being in something of a playful mood that night John decided to give her a taste of her own medicine. After getting his camera out and ready to go and even though the lighting wasn't very good. . He still managed to get a good set of shots of her before the young woman decided to take off on him. He'd already gotten the TV station she worked for off the van she and her friend used, so it was an easy matter to catch her there later and leave a little present for her tucked under the windshield wiper of her car. By the time Holly got done with the footage from the fire as well as the rest of the house keeping chores she'd been ignoring around the station for the last few days it was almost dawn. Dragging herself out to her car Holly was just looking forward to heading home and taking a bath before rolling into bed for a few hours of sleep. But getting to her car instead Holly found a manila envelope tucked under the wiper. . Not sure what the hell was going on, but too tired to really care she snatched it up and opened it only to find she was looking at pictures of herself sitting in her car from could only have been last night. Some were of her and the car and others were obvious enlargements of just her face so there could be no doubt of who it was. She didn't find a note or anything else but there couldn't be any doubt who had taken her picture. For a moment though Holly just found herself standing frozen in the T.V. station parking lot, not sure what to do. . In her imaginings of how this was all supposed to go it had really seemed so much easier somehow. Even being the on air face for the news spots she and Tami did Holly still found she really didn't like being on the other end of the camera under these conditions. So, okay, on the one hand she was irritated that this guy had seen fit to play a little joke on her. She found hypocritically perhaps that she really didn't like having her picture taken by someone she didn't know was there. . Holly also was forced to acknowledge that her attempt at stealth had very obviously failed. . The role of secret agent clearly wasn't her thing, but what should she do now? There was one other thing that was also very clear and which was that she was just too damn tired to deal with this right now and chose to head home for that bath and some time to think. Holly, after getting some sleep, decided it was long past time to talk to this guy and get his side of the story. With that in mind she headed back to what she assumed was his apartment as soon as she could the next afternoon and just hoped he'd be there. Pulling up once again in front of his building she realized as if it were possible that the building and the neighborhood itself looked even worse in the daylight than it did at night. She didn't see John's car out front but decided to knock on the door anyway just in case he was actually in there. . Missed Appointment After having attempted to knock a few times and not getting a response as well as not hearing anything from inside, the apartment she'd finally decided that he really wasn't home and was going to leave. Getting back to the street she now saw John's old car parked none too well in fact down the block. Curious she walked over to take a look, Holly didn't see him in the car at first but as she got closer she found someone slumped over the wheel. Holly approached the car with more caution now while she also kept one hand on the small can of pepper spray in her coat pocket and took a look inside. With that one look she confirmed that yep it was John alright and he didn't look like he was moving; in fact from the way he was sitting there it looked like he was unconscious. . Wondering for a moment if he was drunk which, considering the neighborhood they were in, wouldn't have surprised her all that much. Holly taped on the cars window a couple of times and when she didn't get a response she knocked louder and this time he seemed to come around and with a grunt sat up. "Oh hello there nice to meet you at last," he told her with a crooked grin. As if they had some kind of standing appointment. Then with what was a visible effort he got the car door open and with a louder grunt of what could only be pain stepped out. While he took a moment to rest, Holly was really starting to wonder what was wrong with him, then he asked her to get his bag out of the back seat. Please he offered. Since he seemed to be having some trouble or other that didn't at least appear to have anything to do with alcohol, she complied and found the bag in question had a camera and various lenses in it. With that, the two of them set off at a slow pace for the front door of his apartment. Holly was really getting concerned now because the more steps he took, the harder it seemed to be for him to go on. Just getting up the stairs to the second floor of the building seemed to about do him in. . Finally unable to hold back her curiosity any longer she asked about his apparent difficulty he just shrugged. "Had a rough day," he told her with a shrug that brought a wince of pain, "sort of an occupational hazard." Since up to this time he had on a long shabby overcoat it wasn't until they were inside the apartment and she helped him off with the coat that she got a look at the big red stain on his shirt. . Gasping she asked the obvious question, "Are you alright?" Settling into a well worn easy chair, John just gave a deep sigh and nodded, "I'll be fine he assured her. Like I said it's an occupational hazard." "What happened?" Holly asked in spite herself, the reporter in her coming to the fore again. . From where she was standing in the living room, Holly took a second and glanced around at the some of the things John kept out. Most of the furniture appeared to be as low rent as the apartment with most of it showing a few burn holes. Which made sense since the whole place reeked of cigarette smoke, not that the overflowing ash trays scattered around weren't a giveaway. But there were a few pictures in what look like real sterling silver frames that looked very old. Taking a closer look Holly saw one of a young and very beautiful woman in old fashioned clothes standing next to a horse; in fact there were several of her in different poses. It was the last one that quickly got Holly's attention though since in this one, the women was standing next to someone in what looked like a wedding picture and that man looked just like John...but how could that be? Holly's diverted attention hadn't gone unnoticed. John simply took the moment his young guest spent studying his apartment to fish a pack of smokes out of his pocket and light one up with as deep a drag as the hole in his chest would allow before it started to protest. Smelling the fresh smoke Holly turned back to John, "You know those things are going to kill you," Holly said only half in jest. John though started to laugh at that idea and between gasping coughs and told her that smoking was the least of his problems. Seeing where she had been looking John, despite his discomfort, wanted to get the conversation back on track. He had already decided that the inquisitive young women wasn't ready to know the whole story, not yet, so he decided to answer her first question as a segway to the rest of it by stating the obvious fact. "I got shot," he replied simply. "What! How?" she asked. John had been right, that information got Holly's full attention. . "It was a car jacking across town and I got in the middle of it." "Why did you do that?" "Trust me that wasn't my plan," he assured her, "unfortunately sometimes you can get a little too close to the action," he replied with a shrug wincing at the sharp pain that movement caused. . "This is one of those times." "Why aren't you at the hospital?" she asked incredulously. She knew that's where she would be if she'd been shot. But John was already shaking his head. "I'll be fine in a while, this isn't the first time that something like this has happened." Seeing that she didn't understand he continued, "If I go to the hospital they have to file a report and in any case I'm not going to die so there really isn't any point." Pausing to look at her more intently he said, "I'm surprised that you're not at the car jacking actually it looked like it was going to be a real three ring circus." "I'm not the only person working at the station you know," she informed him. At that moment fate decided to prove her wrong with the sounding of her cell phone, showing more than a little annoyance she pulled it out of her purse. Holly saw it was Roger at the station, and with a sigh she flipped it open suspecting what he was going to say. She was right of course Roger wanted to know was just where the hell she was and how soon she could get down to the station. Holly informed him that where she was was none of his business and why did she need to come in already? She found out why with the information that there had been a car jacking that went bad with two people dead and now there had been robbery across town and he needed her to meet Tami over there and cover it like right now. Holly shot a glance at her new acquaintance, there were so many questions that she wanted to ask but with Roger on the line and time slipping away, she knew she had to go. Holly told Roger that she'd meet Tami at the scene of the robbery and then hung up. . John waited, sitting as comfortably as he could with a bullet in his chest and a lit cigarette sitting none too easily in the full ashtray by his chair. Holly was really getting frustrated that once again she was not going to get the answers that had brought her here but she knew it was just going to have to wait. . As if he could read her mind John reassured her, "Don't worry I'll be here when you get done doing your thing. You can come back and we can talk then." Seeing the sincere look on his face Holly decided he was telling the truth, not that she had a lot of choice in the matter in any case she knew that she'd just have to save all her questions for later and quickly headed out the door with a promise to get back as soon as she could. The scene of the car jacking might have been the three ring circus that John described but the robbery sounded pretty lively on its own, from what she heard on the police scanner anyway. It took what seemed like forever for the two women to get the footage and interviews they needed then get it edited and ready in time for the evening news show. But once it was finally done, Holly couldn't stand the suspense anymore and headed back to John's apartment as fast as she could. Tami had noticed that her friend was a little off her game and when she asked about it, Holly almost told her what had been happening but at the last moment she held back. Not because she didn't trust her but because to be honest, what did she really know? So after again promising Tami she'd tell her what had been going on later Holly finally got out of the station. Arriving back at John's apartment she found the lights still on, which was encouraging. She took it as a hopeful sign, but Holly did wonder if she'd find a dead body waiting for her inside despite his assurances to the contrary and if she did what would she do about it? How could she explain what she had been doing there to the cops and the fact she didn't call for help the first moment she knew something had happened? With a sigh at how deep she was getting into this, Holly pushed those thoughts out of her head for the moment. First she wanted to see if he was dead or alive and then she'd somehow deal with whatever she found. Knocking at the door Holly was suddenly struck by the thought of how she'd even get in if this enigmatic man was in fact lying in there unconscious or dead. But those thoughts were quickly left by the way side when after a moment the door opened to show John standing there now looking only a little worse for wear. He'd even changed his cloths and at least seemed to be alright. Seeing her surprise at his recovery John simply said, "I told you not to worry," and motioned her inside. Walking into the room Holly found herself keeping her distance. This was after all a man that a few hours ago looked like he was about ready to drop, his shirt covered in blood and now well he still didn't look entirely well but he sure looked a lot healthier than he did then. How was this possible, she asked herself and in those few seconds her thoughts ran the gambit from being curious to intrigued, to frightened to just what the hell was she doing here alone with him. After all no one knew she was here... what the hell had she been she been thinking? "You were shot weren't you?" she asked suddenly asking the obvious just to get it out in the open. Also wanting to make sure she wasn't the victim of some kind of practical joke. John just snorted in amusement, "Oh yea I sure was," and just to prove it he lifted his t-shirt to show the large bruise on the right side of his chest. Moving closer to him she could even still see the mark where what must have been the bullet had hit him. But it had already almost healed already. So it was true then? But how could this be? When she voiced her thoughts out loud John just shrugged telling her it was a long story if she wanted to hear it, "but to be honest you probably wouldn't believe me anyway, I don't blame you for that really," he assured her, "since if I were you I wouldn't believe it either." While waiting earlier to see if the young reporter would in deed come back though, he would have been very surprised if she hadn't. John had some time to think about things and had decided that he really didn't have all that much to lose by telling her as much as she was ready to hear, so he would bring her in on his secret if it looked like she wanted to know and if it looked like she could handle the truth. . He sincerely hoped she could; it had been so long since anyone had known the real truth, and the loneliness of his existence had sometimes become almost overwhelming. John didn't consider the fact that he could be inadvertently placing her life in danger by bring her into his confidence. Though afterward he'd have plenty of time to reconsider and regret his decision. So here she was standing in the living room of a guy who she had just met who by all rights should either be dead or, at the very least in the hospital, but was instead walking around with no more discomfort than if he' d pulled a few muscles. The sane move would be to get the hell out of there and just right all this off as some sort of breakdown on her part, or maybe it was just one of those weird unexplainable things that people sometimes run across and when they can't figure it out, they just forget it with a shrug of their shoulders and move on with there lives. All these thoughts were clearly visible on her face as she considered them. Again resting comfortably in his easy chair John had been studying her closely, as she waged her internal debate. Finally getting up with a still noticeable twinge he moved over to look out the window since he didn't want to influence her decision either way if he could help it. He would just have to wait to see just what she was going to decide. He honestly wouldn't blame her if she just walked away. It wouldn't have been the first time someone had. There have been a few over the years that have gotten suspicious of him and that led to one sort of meeting like this or another. But somehow he didn't think she would learn perhaps a bit of the truth and decided it was just too crazy and walk away no she struck him as someone who wanted to know the truth even if the knowing might mean that they wouldn't ever sleep well again. Some truths are like that; once you know something it so fundamentally changes your outlook on the world that nothing is ever the same again... sort of like the loss of childhood innocence, he supposed with a mental shrug. Turning to John and squaring her shoulders finally Holly reached her decision, "I want to know what's going on," she said in as firm a voice as she could manage. Nodding John simply turned from the window and moved back to his easy chair and gingerly sat back down. But before he began he first lit up another smoke. Holly though wondered if all the second hand smoke in the room with them would kill her. . "You have to know a few things right off, first if I tell you this then you have to know that your life will never be the same. You'll never look at the world the same way again." he told her in all seriousness, giving voice to his earlier thoughts. "I don't know what your religious affiliations are but this will most likely shake you up a bit." "What? Are you trying to talk me out of this?" she asked with a smirk. It was a little funny to have the mystery man tell her all this now after she had made her decision to want to know what was going on. Giving her back a tired smile of his own, John just stated, "No but I want you to go into this with your eyes as open as they can be. I also want you to know that if you want to walk out that door and forget about me I wouldn't blame you. . In fact it could very well be the smart play here," he told her in all seriousness Nodding Holly knew what he was doing, at least she thought she did; it was the same sort of thing that a reporter might use on a whistle blower, giving them an opportunity to back out before they are in too deep. But she, like them had made her decision and was committed. . "I understand that and I appreciate the offer but I want to know." John nodded as he crossed his legs and relaxed back into his chair ready it seemed to tell his tale. "Very well then," he said waving her over to the other chair in the room and started in, "I remember from before that you were looking at the photo's I have set out," he said by way of a beginning. "Yes I was." "And you saw the one with me in it?" "I saw one with someone that looks a like you but that could have been someone else or maybe the picture wasn't as old as it looked," she told him giving voice to at least a couple of the more rational explanations for what she had seen. John nodded his understanding, "That's all true. But what if the pictures you were admiring were real and were perhaps even older than you thought?" Holly wasn't sure what he was trying to say. "The wedding photo was taken on April 13, 1832," he stated bluntly, watching her reaction. "The others were taken shortly before and just after that." "What? That was how long ago?" "Almost 132 years," he told her, sparing her the effort of trying to do the math. "You look just the same," she informed him unnecessarily. He nodded, "You haven't aged?" He nodded again. "How is that possible?" "It started with sickness, you see we were both deathly ill, just like lots of other people, a wave of cholera was seeping thorough the city, this city ironically enough, thousands died in just a few weeks. Well one of those people was my beloved Edith." Staring off into space for a moment John was surrounded by a sea of memories. He pointed to a photo album on a shelf, "That one there, could you give it to me please." Holly took down the old and worn tomb and carried it over to him. Thumbing through the well-worn pages it was almost like he was talking to himself. "Our life together was so carefree then so innocent, how things have changed, he said, his voice getting grim. "Of course I didn't know what would happen till later, no one saw this coming. We both caught the bug and got very sick in fact I suppose that's where our story really begins. On October 13, 1832, both Edith and I were sick with cholera. We were being treated in the same makeshift clinic, though we were in different rooms. All the hospitals were completely overwhelmed of course, there were so many people sick and dying, you can't even imagine," he told her. "I was lying there so ill I can hardly describe to you the pain I was feeling. The otherwise quiet room was filled with moans and the delirious ranting of others. There were a good 50 of us in there together, with just one nurse to look after all of us." He met her eyes for a moment before continuing. "I don't blame her for what happened she was doing her best in an impossible situation. But I was laying there drifting in an out just waiting to die like the rest of us, since other than trying to make us as comfortable as she could, there wasn't anything else the nurse could really do. But after a time I came to realize that someone or something was there with me. I could just catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. But when I turned to look at it was gone. As time passed it either got bolder or maybe I just got sicker, I don't know but I could see it more clearly. . As incredible as it sounds I came to believe I was actually seeing death." Of all the things John could have said, that really caught her off guard; even though Holly wasn't buying a word of this after all what sane person would, John though didn't notice her skepticism being so caught up in his story. "It would move around the room and take this person then that one, sometimes it leave us alone for a while then it would be back and take a few more, it almost seemed to just be at random. Then one day it came for me. I could see it there looking at me but some how I don't know how," he told her honestly, "but I knew that if I didn't look at it then it wouldn't take me so I turned away. That was the hardest thing I had ever done, I so wanted to look you have no idea," he told her his voice full of certainty. "I wanted the pain to end, and I knew it would if only I would lock eyes with my visitor but then I would think of Edith and I knew I couldn't do that to her, she needed me," his face showing his obvious passion for this woman that Holly had never met, "so I turned away and death passed me by." "The next day my fever broke and I was told I was one of the lucky ones to recover. I hadn't realized what I had done at first or the price I was going to have to pay for it. The first inkling of what that was going to be was when Edith died." With that John stopped his story for a moment and seemed to drift off in thought. His memories went back to happier times for a moment, times that seemed so long ago now even to him but he quickly shook himself back to the here and now. "Anyway after Edith died I just drifted for awhile. Life didn't have any meaning for me really anymore; it wasn't till a few years had past that it began to sink in that something was wrong. That sort of realization doesn't come all at once of course, its made up of a lot of little things but the event that finally make me comprehend the extraordinary truth was when I would look at my friends and there families and could clearly see the years passing and having those years mean something but not for me. I realized I wasn't getting any older. It wasn't long after that I began to comprehend the enormity of the mistake that I had made."