D.D. Murphry, Secret Policeman
Alan M. Clark & Elizabeth Massie

3:55 PM—Monday, December 19th

D.D. Murphry, Secret Policeman, was headed for the bus stop at 23rd and Gilcrest, about to start his daily “Bus Duty,” as he liked to call it.  He would ride several buses aimlessly, watching the general public, exercising his authority secretly where need be.

He missed Kate.  Either she was still on vacation or he just hadn’t figured out her new schedule yet.  He’d stopped asking the staff at the library about her because he was certain they would not give him the truth or didn’t know it themselves.

The loneliness I’m feeling, he told himself, is for sissies.  He shook himself to try to get it out of his system.

Squinting against the cold winter wind, his eyes lit upon a message in the text of a newspaper lying on top of a stack at a periodicals vendor.  It said, “She will see you if you don’t watch your step.”  The sentence was pieced together in his mind in a flash from subtly bolded words scattered throughout a block of text.

Noticing a streetlight glowing up ahead, he realized that the text was referring to the woman in black.  He crossed the street to avoid being seen.  Most would not even observe that the lamp was lit in broad daylight.  Even he might not have detected it if he hadn’t just been warned.  Those who did notice it would probably think the mechanism that automatically turned the light off when there was daylight was broken.  Murphry knew better—the streetlight was a surveillance device used by the False Government.  The woman in black would be using it at that very moment to try to locate him.  As long as he didn’t walk on the section of sidewalk it shone upon, she would not see him.

At the bus stop, Murphry stood alone with his thoughts and feelings.  He shook himself again, trying to dislodge the lonesome feeling.

A Secret Policeman doesn’t need any friends. The work is too dangerous—your friends might get hurt—and it would be easier for the False Government to get to you through your friends.  The False Government depends on the capricious loyalty of family and friends.  I can only hope they never find out about Kate and me.

A taxi passed him with a toe-nail fungus medicine advertisement on it.  It said, “With Friends like these, who needs enemies?”

And that was the real problem with friends and family—you’d end up trusting them and inevitably they took the opportunity that that presented to stab you in the back.  Human beings just weren’t to be trusted.

The fact that Kate was also a Secret True Government employee and couldn’t be seen with Murphry without risking her cover being blown was probably the only thing that had saved their marriage.  He knew that the divorce rate was well on its way to becoming one hundred percent.  What did that say about spending time with your significant other?  No, as difficult as it was to accept at times, his employers were wise to have have mated the two of them and then found cause to keep them apart.

The bus arrived and Murphry boarded.  Once again, he was able to sit in the rear of the bus so he could study the other passengers.  They were an unassuming bunch, he thought until he turned and looked more closely at the man beside him.  The fellow had excessive nose hair.  It was a dead giveaway of the hypochondriac.  His ilk cost the American public millions of dollars every year and put a strain on the health care system.

“What can you do about it?” Murphry gathered this message from the mass transit regulations posted near the front of the bus, the ad on back of a magazine, and a candy wrapper lying in the aisle.  The message seemed to be a test of sorts.  His superiors kept him on his toes by asking such questions from time to time.

Nothing, because it is daylight.  If it were night time, I’d come up behind the guy, grab him by the neck and haul him into a dark alley where I could dispatch him.  Then there’d be one less hypochondriac putting stress on the system.

“Your nose,” Murphry said to the man.

“Pardon me?” he said.

“Your nose,” Murphry said again.  “Is it real?”

“Of course it’s real.”  The fellow gave him a quizzical look and turned away.

“There’s dandruff on your shoulder,” Murphry said.

The man pretended to ignore him.

“Your clothes are wrinkled and your hair is greasy.”

Several of the other passengers, hearing this exchange, became curious.  Murphry knew he was getting through to them.   No doubt some were the fellow’s friends and family who were unaware the man was such a danger to society.  Murphry meant to change that here and now.  It wouldn’t take much.

After taking stock of the other passengers who were all staring, the man turned to Murphry and looked him in the eye.  “I have been ill,” he said slowly and carefully, obviously trying hard to control his emotions. “I have not been able to keep myself up as well as I might.”

“Aha!” Murphry nearly shouted.

The man jumped in his seat. Several of the other passengers started as well.

The bus was about to stop at Hyacinth Avenue, Murphry’s stop.  He got up, looked around at his audience and said, “You all heard him.  You know what he is now and you know what to do.”

As he stepped off the bus through the side exit door and back into the winter wind, he imagined them all jumping the hypochondriac and tearing him limb from limb.  That wasn’t likely to happen, unfortunately.  The type of justice Murphry had just set into motion moved much slower.  But now that these people had been apprised, their disapproval would set in.  They’d talk amongst themselves and it would deepen.  The man would be ostracized, especially by his friends and family.  His life would become a living hell and eventually he may save everyone a lot of trouble by taking his own life.  One way or the other, he’d be so marginalized that he would no longer matter.

This would take a while, but Murphry could be patient.  He had taught himself how.

Friends and family are good for something after all, he told himself.

Alan M. Clark grew up in Tennessee. He is most known for his work in illustration, which appears in books of fiction, non-fiction, textbooks, young adult fiction and children’s books. His awards in the illustration field include the World Fantasy Award and four Chesley Awards. His fiction has appeared in magazines, anthologies and a collection released by Scorpius Digital Publishing. Siren Promised, his Bram Stoker Award-nominated novel, written with Jeremy Robert Johnson, was released in 2005. His two book series with Stephen Merritt and Lorelei Shannon, The Blood of Father Time, Books 1 & 2, a dark time-travel fantasy, was published by Five Star Books in 2007. Clark’s publishing company, IFD Publishing, has released six books, the most recent of which is a full color book of his artwork, The Paint in My Blood. He and his wife, Melody, live in Oregon. For more info visit www.alanmclark.com.

Two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author Elizabeth Massie has published 26 novels for adults, teens, and young readers, primarily in the genres of horror, historical fiction, and media tie-ins. Her titles include Sineater, Welcome Back to the Night, Wire Mesh Mothers, Homeplace, The Tudors: King Takes Queen, The Tudors: Thy Will Be Done, and others. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with illustrator Cortney Skinner. She hates cheese and loves World’s Softest Socks, and thinks Alan Clark has one wicked sense of humor. Visit her at www.elizabethmassie.com.