Absence of the Human, Chapter 14, Scene 1

Friends and Readers,

My first draft of the next scene from Absence of the Human. Adam follows the killer, Frost is surprised.

As most of you know, these drafts are available in their entirety to my supporting subscribers. Everyone can see the scene’s beginning.

If you want to start from chapter one, you can do that here.

Once I got backstage there were too many options.

I could make a u-turn, go behind a large curtain hanging behind the stage itself.

I could go straight ahead, to a hallway leading off into the building.

Or I could take the stairs.

There were two stairways, one leading up and the other down.

I stopped, unsure which way to go.

I must have looked lost and confused, because a voice came to my aid.

“You lookin’ for the fugitive?”

It was an old man—short, skinny, and dressed in overalls—sitting on a high stool by the wall. His ears and eyes seemed to large for his face and his head was decorated with a few wisps of grey hair.

“No need to stare. Just answer the question.”

I nodded.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to . . . Yes. I am. Looking for the—the fugitive.”

He nodded at me, and then tilted his head toward the stairway.

“Went up. Him and the one following.”

I stammered out a thank-you and took the stairs two at a time.

They opened onto another hallway at the top.

It was long, but luckily it only went one way to where it finally met another at right angles, mapping as a sort of T-shape.

I thought I saw someone just rounding the corner there as I entered, but I wasn’t sure.

So I started my way along the passage, dividing my attention between getting to the end as fast as I could and still keeping an eye out at each of the doorways I passed.

There was nothing suspicious about the first one, which like most of them, was on the right side of the hall.

About halfway to the second there was a small window in the wall to my left. It looked down into the theater I had just left, giving a view of the stage.

The next door also appeared wholly innocent.

The third door stood open, so I paused to look in.

And there was Frost, his mask under his arm, staring at a figure on the floor.