What happened

Since Gabriel had done-- whatever he'd done to her, made her vomit up bugs and slugs and all kinds of foreign articles that hadn't belonged in her body, Laura had been at a bit of a loss of what to do. Without Shadow around, she had no one to watch over, and now that she wasn't rotting anymore, she didn't have to occupy her time finding ways to cover up the fact that she was dead and rotting, and smelt, quite literally, like a corpse.

She'd continued to clean the cathedral, before Father Everett had taken her aside, and said that although he appreciated the help and the work that she did around the place, that maybe her skills might be better utilised out in the real world. Laura thought that he was getting a little bored, because Laura was doing all the jobs that the Father usually did, which left him with nothing to do besides ponder his own thoughts.

Which Laura conceded wasn't something that she particularly wanted to do. So when someone left a copy of The City Voice, the local paper, lying on one of the pews, Laura had pulled out the Careers section, and tossed the rest in the recycling bin.

By the end of the day, she'd circled a couple of potential jobs that she figured she was qualified to do. There were a few openings in Real Estate, but really, those were her last options. She hadn't particularly enjoyed selling people houses when she was alive, especially when she was usually selling them better houses than the one she lived in, and now that she was dead, she didn't really think she could fake the enthusiasm needed to really get anything sold. But that was where her background was, so she put them down just in case.

There was one working at a Morgue as a cleaner. Laura didn't much mind dead bodies, or cleaning, so it was definitely a potential.

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Father Everett was the pastor of a big church. It was such a big church, that one could probably get away with calling it a cathedral, and they wouldn't be exaggerating. But the Father was only one man, and there was a distinct lack of help around here sometimes. Laura had seen an alter boy, when Father held the Sunday Mass, but since then, she hadn't seen anyone else.

It meant that when it came to upkeep and maitanence of the church, the Father was alone in his duty. Despite Everett's insistance that Laura should not feel obligated, Laura couldn't help it. She began doing odd jobs around the place, just to help out a bit. Going outside was a bit of a gamble these days anyway. The sun was hot on her dead skin, and it was getting harder and harder to cover up the fact that she was dead. She'd coughed up some maggots the other day. She dreaded to think what else was feeding off her dead flesh.

She'd have to do something about that soon. Things were getting desperate.

But she wasn't going to do anything about that today. Instead, in her effort to give back to Father Everett and his generosity, she'd found a large broom, which she was using to sweep between the pews. It wouldn't do to have people kneeling in penance, only to have their pants soiled with grime and dirt.

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So Oz had gone from California to … wherever here was. So his neighbor seemed a little … off . So when he asked people where he was they just responded with ‘The City’. So what? It wasn’t like his life had been great before he ended up here. In fact one could argue that his life had been on kind of a downward slide before he had ended up here in ‘The City.

Oz was going to make the best of it, and the best way to make the best of it seemed to be trying to fit in. He felt, if he did say so himself, that he was doing a good job. He had an apartment (with the aforementioned slightly off neighbor but hey he considered himself lucky, the landlord hadn’t asked for references or anything like that. Which was good since all of Oz’s references where back in California) and he had managed to find a drugstore. Which had actually been harder than he had expected it to be, apparently the streets here moved.

But no matter, he had found a drug store, and one that carried a nice wide variety of hair dye. New City, new apartment, time for a new hair colour. Oz was aware that there were some other, somewhat pressing concerns he was going to have to deal with soon. A source of income for example and he’d need to find a place that sold some of the herbs he needed. Either that or find some chains. He’d also have to find a calendar that let him know just when the full moon was due.

But that could be dealt with in the future. Right now Oz just had to decide between a jar of After Midnight Blue or Electric Lizard dye.

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She felt a little better, after her night spent in the church. The bells had gone off right on seven o'clock, when Father Everett had said, and although Laura had only had about three hours of 'sleep' at that point, she pulled herself out of the bed anyway. The boots-from-Chicago were slipped onto her feet, and she was careful to remake the bed properly. She even refluffed the pillow, not that it had been particularly fluffy in the first place.

Laura retraced her steps to get back out into the main hall of the church. She looked around quickly to see if Father Everett was here, but she didn't see him anywhere. It didn't much matter. She left the church quietly, being sure not to slam the heavy door on her way out.

She didn't know where she was going, but she began to walk anyway. She thought about the possibility of fetching her belongings from the truck. All she had there was some cash, some spare clothes, and at the moment, she didn't really need either. Laura found her feet walking in the direction of the City's park. It was still early in the morning, and joggers with their dogs were still hogging the footpath. She avoided both with utmost care, and when she got to a small, man-made lake in the middle of the park, she sat down at a bench, and watched the ducks swim.

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It didn't take long for Laura to figure out that she wasn't going to be getting out of this city. She drove around for a few hours, making sure to keep out of situations where she could get her truck into trouble. She doubted that she would find people like Bartleby willing to turn her truck around on the road if she managed to get stuck again.

Even still, that left her with certain problems. What was she supposed to be doing now? She couldn't very well follow her husband if she couldn't get out of a bloody city.

It was about two in the morning when she parked the truck and climbed back into the cabin. It smelt like man and sweat and something particularly rancid. But Laura didn't mind. There was a sleeping bag here, one of those ones that people took to Antarctica. She curled up into a ball, wrapping the sleeping bag tightly around her. The streetlight from the street outside filtered through into the cabin, lighting up the walls that were littered with naked women. Pages torn from Penthouse and Playboy had been stuck to the wall with sticky tape.

She didn't sleep. Not really. She closed her eyes for a while and rested, but not once did she really sleep. Every now and then she'd pull the sleeping bag tighter around her, trying to keep her lack of body warmth in. She shivered, once, then threw the blanket off in a huff.

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She'd found a little convenience store not far from where she parked her truck. They'd sold a variety of city maps there, but Laura hadn't really been fussy. She just picked up the cheapest one that seemed to have what she needed on it. A way out.

Seven dollars and ten minutes later, Laura was back in the truck with the map opened up and spread out across the dash board. According to the map, she was near the corner of 5th and 17th. And if she turned up that road and went down it for five or so blocks, she'd get to what looked like a main road, which would take her out of the city. Perfect.

She twisted the keys in the ignition, and the engine burst into life beneath her. The truck began to whirr and vibrate and Laura pushed the truck forward, gently pressing her foot down on the gas. She was outta here.

Or so she thought.

Getting to that main road hadn't proved that difficult, and the traffic wasn't even that unreasonable. But as the truck moved closer and closer to the city limits, a feeling of trepidition began to fill up Laura's stomach. There was a wall at the end of the road. Laura pulled the truck up abruptly, and stared up at the wall. Maybe she'd taken a wrong turn? There certainly wasn't any wall on the map. Certainly not a tall wall, made of solid red-brick, which was very very tall. She wouldn't be able to scale it. If she were to try, she'd need a grapple-hook and a lot of rope, which were two things she just didn't have on her today.

She hopped out of the cabin, taking the map with her. She'd find someone, and she'd ask them where she'd gone wrong.

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Laura Moon wanted to travel south.

If you asked her why, she wouldn't've been able to give you a reason. The light within her, the one that scrunched and pulled at her stomach when her husband, Shadow, needed her help, wasn't shining so brightly lately, so she didn't really have a great deal to do. But she started moving southward anyway.

Maybe it was because it was warmer in Texas. She was always so cold these days. It felt like she was frozen down to the bones. Sometimes she felt it was so cold that the light in her, Shadow's light, it felt like it would be squished out by the frost. The thought of losing that feeling scared the wits out of her.

Or maybe it was because she had memories of visiting Galveston with her mother every winter so that they could spend time somewhere where it was warmer. At least she thought she remembered visiting Galveston. She couldn't be sure anymore, whether she was remembering things she experienced in life, or whether she'd never actually been to Galveston before, and it was someone else's memory in her brain. She remembered seagulls, though. Hundreds of seagulls.

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