All
in all, Blake visited about half a dozen agents before he gave up. A vague
theory, more of an impression, really, was starting to gather nebulously in the
back of his mind. As one might expect, anyone who chose a career in the Department
of Extranatural Affairs tended to be a sort of eccentric loner. Oh, not
misanthropic or unsociable, but isolated by their specialized knowledge. That
made them a tightknit fellowship, always glad to see someone they knew would
sympathize and understand. They tended to be unmarried, though there were a few
husband-and-wife teams within the Bureau, but even fewer ‘unevenly yoked’ families,
like James and Francine Mercy, who had been having a garage sale when he visited.
Francine was a thoroughly ordinary lady who didn’t like James and Blake talking
shop, as she put it. They had met when James had helped her family with a
particularly nasty overshadowing; she’d had enough of the extranatural to last
a lifetime, she said. Blake left with a cheap little wall clock shaped like a
kettle, some ceramic bowls, and the determination to go and see the Director of
the Bureau himself with his concerns.
The
DEA building was a blank, bland twelve-story structure downtown among many
other faceless buildings, almost as if it was insisting on its own normality. When
Blake had first arrived in the city, he had half-expected to find some sort of
Gothic mansion with a hovering, lightning-laced cloud. Sometimes he still
suspected there was some sort of invisible turbulence over it anyway.
It
certainly could have used a cloud today: the morning cool had dissipated, and
the late summer sun was beating down out of a clear blue sky. The parking lot
was a bleak desert Blake had to sprint across before he could reach the
relative safety of the concrete porchway.
He
found the Director in his office on the very top floor. The building’s air
conditioning had failed up there, and Henry Harris Byrd sat sweating at his desk
under the ministration of an annoying and inadequate rotating fan that ruffled
his paperwork as he tried to review it. His shirt was soaked, his sleeves
rolled up, and his tie hung loose and limp around his open collar.
Mr.
Byrd was a middle-aged man with a burly football player’s physique that was
starting to go to flab. Sweat gleamed on his black balding head. He looked up,
half-annoyed and half-relieved at the interruption. His pen drooped in his
hand.
“Ah,
Mr. Martin, isn’t it?” he boomed. “I haven’t seen you since you started here, I
think. Always glad to have one of our younger agents drop in. How is the
Strange World treating you? Got the willies yet?”
Blake
grinned awkwardly.
“Well,
no sir, at least not more so than is professionally necessary for the job. But
I have been a little uneasy – I’ve talked with several other agents and
observed them - and I thought I’d better run things by you to see if I should
be concerned.”
Byrd
sat back, pushing away from his paperwork.
“Why
don’t you tell me about it? But first, could you bring me a bottle of water
from that fridge there? Have one yourself. This heat is killing me, and Mr.
Saunders says there’s nothing can be done about it until tomorrow.”
Blake
got the bottles, gave Byrd one, then sat down in one of the plain institutional
chairs in front of the desk. The boy rolled his bottle between his hands, pondering
what to say, as the Director took several deep gulps of icy water then wet a
huge red handkerchief and wiped his face and bulging neck. When Byrd had sat
back comfortably and seemed attentive, Blake began to try to explain.
“Well,
like I said, I’d been feeling uneasy, so I thought I’d go out and beat the
bounds, so to say, see what other folks would say. The story was always the
same: no unusual activity, but I could see a sort of pattern emerge.”
“Mm-hm.”
Byrd’s rumble was noncommittal.
“They
all seemed kind of restless and uneasy, too, working it off with some kind of
cleaning or preparation. Oh, it wasn’t anything they talked about, but they
were all doing it. And I wondered … I wondered if they might be picking up on
something, something kind of subtle, maybe a kind of forewarning. I thought I
should tell you …” Blake looked at the Director helplessly. It all seemed so
vague and flimsy now that he said it out loud. Byrd grunted in annoyance.
“Don’t
worry about it, kid. You’re not the first agent to have noticed this kind of
thing. It’s just that time of year.”
“What
do you mean?”
Byrd
slumped forward again.
“The
phenomenon is very familiar to the Department. It is not a verifiable
occurrence, like the spike around Halloween, but a sort of superstition (well,
hardly even that; more of a feeling) that has arisen here in the Bureau of
Shadows. Not surprising when you get a batch of sensitive people working
together. Near the end of September, before the first day of Fall, most agents
get this urge to ‘change their profile’. To some it’s getting rid of their old
wardrobe and buying new clothes; easily justifiable with the changing season.”
He raised his eyebrows skeptically. “There is a vague feeling (it has never
been formulated or codified) that this keeps ghosts and other spirits that agents
may have encountered from finding them again when the Dark Season starts.” He
shrugged. “I advise you to just ignore it. It never seems to come to anything,
really.”
“You
think?” Blake was reluctant to let things go.
“I
know,” Byrd said firmly. “Just get on with your life.” The phone on his desk
suddenly birled insistently. “Just a minute,” he said politely, picking up the
receiver and holding it to his ear. “Byrd speaking. Yeah?” He listened
intently. “Yeah? Yeah? Okay, I’ll drop by Big Lots on the way home. Yeah. ‘Bye,
dear.” He hung up.
“My
wife,” he said sheepishly. “We’re … we’re tearing down a wall to make a larger
guest bedroom. It’s for the holidays,” he added defensively. “It has nothing to
do with … with this thing. Like I said, pay it no mind.”
Blake
stood up.
“Of
course not, sir. I’m glad you’ve set my mind at ease.”
“Drop
in any time, Martin. Don’t be a loner; loners get … odd. Well, odder. It helps
if we all regulate each other’s clocks.”
By the time Blake got home it was early evening and the day was starting to cool down again. He collapsed down on the couch, thinking of nothing so much as about supper. If the day had not been particularly productive, it had at least tired him out and settled him down. He wondered what to cook, and briefly thought of Parkis’ dehydrated beef stroganoff. It might have been slightly better than the ramen he would probably be making. He stood up and looked wearily around the little apartment. His paperbacks were scattered everywhere. Slowly, almost thoughtlessly, he began to gather them into a pile. He suddenly considered buying a bookshelf, maybe one of those cheap particle board things from Walmart. Of course, he’d have to arrange the furniture to fit it in. Blake began moving things around in his mind as he picked up books. He’d know when things felt just right. It was all perfectly logical. And, after all, it was the season. It couldn’t hurt.
6:42
AM, October 4, 2024
Notes
I knew when I first started to think about this story that it wouldn't be a 'Monster of the Week' type tale. Rather it would be about the Bureau of Shadows itself in a more modern incarnation, its agents and 'culture.' I threw in various moods and memories for 'thickening.' I also wanted to have a bit more about Blake at the start of his career and Byrd as he was as Director; he was introduced in Lovett's Last Case as just another agent, though on the leadership track.
