The Old Town Butcher

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  Fallen Stardust: A boy, an outcast and an alien must find salvation in a world of ruin. Samuel must find a medicine to cure the fever ravaging his village. Markus must find the motive that murdered those he loved. And an angel must find a future in a city crumbled into debris. But something lurks beneath the wasted world, and waking it may doom what little of humanity survives.

  The Sisters Will Dance: Blaine Woosely claws his way back to the living. He has cleaned his blood of his addiction, and an unexpected, family farm home rewards his efforts. Only, the country acres isolate Blaine when a sharp-toothed monster hunts to bring Blaine back to dark. The sad history of Blaine's blood brings magic to the country home's new master, but in the end, only Blaine himself can break his chains.

  Mr. Hancock’s Signature: The dead walk in Monteray. The corpse of a nearly forgotten farmer named Hancock arrives via train. Ian Washington remembers Mr. Hancock and vows to return the body home. Yet Mr. Hancock's body will not rest while Ian works to reopen a cemetery, and the corpse staring each morning upon the doorstep forces the town to choose between the isolation of their fear or the hope of their fellowship.

  The Old Town Butcher

  Brian S. Wheeler

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler

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  The Old Town Butcher

  Chuck's knees wavered as he waited for Pearl at the end of an alley tucked between Old Town's knotted streets. The shade cast upon him from the stacked towers of white, residential cubicles failed to cool much of the fever that beaded his forehead in sweat. The lingering pain in his hip screamed that morning, and Chuck did not harbor hope that his suffering would recede. He realized that the balance had tipped towards his end, that there was no medicine that could pull his course back from the grave. Perhaps that cancer, which Chuck suspected lurked in the marrow of the bones, once provided a time for treatment, for resistance, but Chuck knew that window had closed many months ago. There was only the inevitable end now, and Chuck's last hope was that he might meet it while still holding his head high.

  Thus Chuck stood in the shadows of a narrow alleyway, where he prayed none of the Administrators who roamed the streets of Old Town would notice the discomfort that contorted his wrinkled and age-spotted face. His throbbing, arthritic hands clutched the box against his chest, where he hoped to protect it from curious eyes by embracing the container in his pain. He wished he might meet Pearl in the park, where he could at least sit on a bench to give his pained legs some rest. But the Administers who roamed the streets had labelled even bartering as a misdemeanor, as an activity that could not be condoned, that could not be supported if the citizenry hoped to hold their society together.

  In Old Town, Chuck realized, as well as did any of his neighbors, that neither property nor pain belonged to any woman or man come the first manifestation of sickness, discomfort or ill.

  Chuck thought he saw a shadow flutter across the alleyway, but the sky remained empty as he squinted into the sunlight.

  "You don't look so good, Mr. Wuebbles."

  Chuck smiled to see the tight, white perm of Pearl's hair bob into the alleyway. Somehow, the slim, short woman had pulled it off. Somehow, Pearl had succeeded in pulling the bleating lamb through the blocks of Old Town without attracting any Administrator's attention. No one bartered like Pearl. There was nothing Pearl couldn't find for trade if she liked the smell of what was offered to her.

  "Yep, Chuck," Pearl winked as she reached those shadows occupied by her old trading partner, "you're looking downright terrible. The pain's written all over your face. I don't know how the Administrators haven't showed up yet to take you away."

  Chuck regarded the lamb brought to him. "Maybe the Administrators are going blind. Why, Pearl, you didn't even remove the tag the petting zoo put in the lamb's ear."

  Pearl rolled her eyes. "You didn't tell me it mattered where the lamb came from."

  Chuck stroked the lamb's head. "Maybe a little. My granddaughter enjoyed the petting zoo when she used visit me after the Administrators first assigned me to my residential cubicle in Old Town. Kinda hate thinking the children might miss the animal."

  Pearl frowned. "Don't you dare think about stepping back from this trade. Not now. You have any idea how hard it is to find an animal, of any kind in Old Town? The world's nothing like it was when we were babes."

  "Were we ever babes?" Chuck laughed no matter the pain that flared in his hip.

  "I was a real looker believe it or not, Mr. Wuebbles," Pearl smiled, "but we best get on with this barter, one way or another, before our luck finally fails and an Administrator happens upon our alleyway."

  Chuck sighed and hugged the box closer to his chest. He hated what he needed to offer for that bleating lamb, but Chuck hated Old Town more. He willed himself to lighten his grasp upon that box. He could not flinch in the beginning of his purpose if he hoped to see it through, so that he might define the means of his demise, and so in the end possess at least a final freedom. So Chuck handed the box to Pearl as she handed him the rope to that bleating lamb.

  Pearl quickly opened the box, and her eyes glistened with tears as she pulled the long garment out of its container.

  "Oh, it's lovely," Pearl cried. "It's too beautiful, Chuck. I almost can't take it."

  Chuck forced his face to harden. "You take that wedding dress, Pearl Smith. It's just as beautiful as it was fifty-three years ago when my wife wore it down the aisle. You take that dress and make your granddaughter a happy bride. Life goes on with the young. Don't step back from this trade now."

  Pearl regathered her composure and offered a hand. "It's a deal."

  "Deal." Chuck stomped.

  They both spat into their palms before sealing the deal in a handshake. They were both aged residents of Old Town, and a handshake possessed all the legitimacy two neighbors of that district needed to seal their barter.

  Chuck and Pearl were old, and so whatever they had earned and accumulated during their young years now belonged to those who provided them the healthcare their bodies, and law, required. Neither Chuck nor Pearl any longer owned a savings account. They were no longer allowed to carry cash. Their possessions could be taken without notice should an Administrator determine it appropriate to liquidate their value in order to place a downpayment on a healthcare cost an inevitable, future sickness was sure to tally. The modern world's economy was built upon the care invoiced to the sick and elderly, and the modern world would crash if those patients - whose cancers and heart disease, whose dementia and incontinence, whose frailties and suffering gave purpose to all the doctors, nurses, lab technicians, salesmen, pharmacists and radiologists - were allowed to maintain their possessions when sickness finally arrived.

  Though Chuck had avoided long stints of convalescence, he had passed well bey
ond the age an Administered had marked for him would define to be old age. And so all of Chuck's savings and possessions, all of his credit and property, transferred to the hospitals, doctors, nurses and technicians that would, eventually, be called to tend to his hurt. A clean, simple and white residential cubicle was opened for Chuck within the Old Town district, and there Chuck was told to wait until the frailties finally blossomed that fueled the modern economy's engine.

  Pearl winced as she straightened her fingers following the handshake. "You wouldn't happen to have any eggs, Chuck? Or know where I might trade for some?"

  Chuck looked into the sky and grinned. "What I wouldn't do for an omelet."

  "Don't get me all hot and bothered," Pearl snarled. "You have any eggs or not?"

  "I do not. But I'll offer you whatever omelet I might later find for the chance to trade back for that dress."

  "Then it's another deal," and Pearl carefully folded the wedding dress back into the box before turning and walking back down the alleyway, leaving Chuck alone in the shadow to recall how his wife had appeared on their wedding day.

  The lamb bleated and tugged at its rope, pulling Chuck out of his memories and back into the Old Town streets. Chuck hoped his luck would prove as true as had Pearl's and began his trek back to his white, residential cubicle, pulling the lamb behind him through side-streets and back alleys to, hopefully, better avoid a curious Administrator's gaze. Gray-haired, stooping men and women filled those streets, shuffling out of their identical, white cubicles to enjoy the sunshine, or to gather to play checkers on boards chalked upon the concrete. No one gave Chuck any indication that any of them thought a thing amiss with a goat being led through Old Town.

  "How about that city ball-team, Chuck!"

  "It's good to see you, Nick!"

  Chuck waved at Nick Trumbo, happy to see his friend again sitting in the doorway to his residential box. Chuck had not known if he would have the opportunity to see Nick again after the Administrators had taken him to the hospital to tend the hurts of the neighbor's diabetes. No matter that he pulled a goat through the street, Chuck paused in his trip back home to visit on Mr. Trumbo. Stepping closer, Chuck saw that Nick had lost a second leg to his disease, and yet, the man's face looked as joyous as it always did whenever the sound of a baseball game wafted from the antique radio the Administrators had mercifully left to Nick's possession.

  "They're talking this might finally be the year they bring the championship to the city, Chuck."

  Chuck chuckled. "You're always optimistic at the start of the season, Nick. But I don't know. The teams's off to a terrific start, but the season's long, and that bunch just doesn't seem so strong when you start adding stats. I'm not sure they compare to the older clubs, and even the older clubs couldn't bring the championship to the city."

  "You sound like that Administrator who came sneaking around here this morning, scribbling notes in his little book," Nick replied. "You missed him, Chuck. They're talking jail time now for those caught bartering away their possessions. The Administrators are saying there's too much money being lost to the system in all the trade going on off of the books."

  Chuck spat. "Not sure, Nick, I could tell the difference between my residential cubicle and a jail cell."

  Nick shook his head. "Out here, my friend, we still have the open sky. That's not nothing."

  "No. It is not." Chuck nodded and looked into the sky. But the sky remained empty.

  Chuck bristled as he led the bleating lamb further through the district's knotting streets. The residents of Old Town held no say in the governance of their city blocks. A panel of doctors and hospital administrators monthly gathered to examine how legislation and policy could best insure that each of the sick and old residents paid their debts in full for the medicines the future would surely bring upon them. The Administrators flooded the streets in the days following each monthly meeting with new means to gather the gold that good, benevolent medical care required.

  Chuck stared at the ground as he continued towards his residential box. When had he come to feel like a commodity? When had he become an investment for others to calculate? When did he transform into another person's property?

  Chuck grunted onward. The pain in his hips rose into his chest, tugging at his breath. The pain forced Chuck to pour more and more vodka into his morning tomato juice in order to dull the pain that spread through his blood. He resented the Administrators' presence that forced him to take such a circuitous route through Old Town. What degree of poverty would the Administrators finally demand from the ailing and the sick?

  "That's a fine looking animal, Chuck." The widow Clara Dooley, Chuck's neighbor three doors down from his residential box, waved from her wheelchair. "You planning to keep that animal as a pet? A little company's a good thing in Old Town."

  Chuck shook his head. He hoped Clara's nurse was not lurking around the corner to run and report his lamb to the Administrators. Chuck couldn't afford the attention, not when he had come so far, not when his purpose seemed so close to his grasp.

  "Nope. Not a pet, Clara," Chuck replied. "Has anyone been drifting around our block?"

  Clara's face flushed with indignation. "A whole team of those Administrators were around a half hour ago with their black notebooks. They barged through everyone's residential box without so much as a knock. Won't be long until they note the very clothes on our backs in their neatly-lined pages. But what are you planning to do with that lamb, Chuck? Weren't you a butcher? I've been a good neighbor to you. Don't you forget to invite me over for supper if you're going to cook that lamb."

  "We'll work something out."

  Clara's eyes sparkled. "I'm not asking for any free meal. Those Administrators didn't take everything from me. I've held a little back. I can still trade."

  Chuck tapped his numeric sequence into his door's lock and entered his cramped fifteen foot by fifteen foot home with the bleating lamb squeezing in behind him. The Administrators had emptied all of his drawers searching for any valuable that might not be noted in their books, dumping the contents onto the bed's mattress comforter. The Administrators never made any effort to put anything back.

  "I pray they didn't find my tools, little lamb. It'll be so much harder if they found my tools."

  Fortunately for Chuck, the habitual ease of their district searches had allowed the Administrators' skills in discovery to turn very poor. The cloth bag still waited for Chuck behind the false back he had built into the cabinet beneath the room's sink. His hands had trembled all day for the pain that flowed through his blood, from the arthritis that swelled his knuckles. But his hands were steady when Chuck drew his implements from the cloth. The skin of his thumb thrilled to feel that the knife and cleaver's edges remained sharp. The Administrators had taken almost everything from him, but they had not yet taken away the tools of his old trade. Fortune had preserved at least that dignity for Chuck.

  "There's still a chance, little lamb. There's still a little hope."