Encounter With Mr Death

A conman meets Me Death

The sweat on Lew Bookman’s brow wasn’t merely a byproduct of the July sun; it was a testament to his entire existence. Sixty-two years old, thin as a line of credit, dressed in a perpetually rumpled suit that had seen more summers than most marriages, Lew was a fixture. Not a landmark, mind you, just a fixture�"like a forgotten gum stain on the concrete or a stubbornly rattling AC unit in a tenement window.

He stood on the corner of Elm and 3rd, a small foldable table laden with his current offering: "The Everlast Solar Fan! Never needs batteries! Unlimited cooling power! Just look at this breeze, folks!" He held up a cheap, plastic fan with a small solar panel glued to its top, his voice a practiced wheeze that cut through the city's humid drone. Nobody much looked. They shuffled past, heads down, eyes glazed by the heat and the relentless rhythm of the urban machine. Lew was just noise, part of the street’s white static.

His life was indeed a treadmill built out of sidewalks. From dawn, when the first sticky tendrils of heat seeped into the city, until dusk, when the concrete still radiated the day’s stored inferno, Lew walked, stood, pitched, and repeated. He knew the precise angle of the sun at every hour, the way the shadows stretched, the brief, welcome eddies of air that sometimes drifted between buildings. He knew the exact moment the bank clock across the street would click its fluorescent green numbers.

It clicked now: 2:58 PM.

Lew tugged at his collar, his shirt already plastered to his back. "Folks, don't let this heat get you down! Invest in your comfort! A mere ten credits for a lifetime of breezy relief!" He fanned himself demonstratively, the cheap plastic whirring anemicly.

2:59 PM.

A subtle shift. Not a sound, not a visual cue, but a feeling. Like the air itself had tightened, gone sharp at the edges. The distant drone of traffic seemed to recede, or perhaps, was merely drowned out by a new, almost imperceptible hum that vibrated deep in the bones of the city. People on the sidewalk, hitherto oblivious, began to glance up. A young woman paused mid-stride, her phone still pressed to her ear, a frown creasing her brow. A delivery truck driver, leaning against his idling vehicle, straightened up, scanning the sky.

Lew felt a prickle on the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the sun. His pitch faltered, the familiar words dying in his throat.

Then it dropped.

Not like something falling, but like something descending on purpose. A sleek, obsidian tear-drop shape, utterly silent except for that new, deep hum, gliding down from the shimmering zenith of the afternoon sky. It wasn't a commercial drone, those clunky things with their exposed rotors. This was seamless, menacingly beautiful. It hovered perhaps fifty feet above the intersection, a predator surveying its grazing ground.

3:00 PM.

A pinpoint of emerald light lanced down from its underside, a laser-thin beam that cut through the haze and, with unnerving precision, settled directly on Lew Bookman’s chest. It pulsed once, a heartbeat of green.

Lew gasped, a dry, choked sound. His bladder clenched. Mr. Death wasn't a metaphor. It was a machine.

The hum intensified, no longer subtle but a low, guttural growl that resonated in his teeth. The green dot on his chest pulsed faster, a rapid, almost frantic thrum. It felt… personal. Targeted.

Panic, cold and sharp, ripped through Lew's carefully constructed world of pitches and prices. His treadmill life, usually a curse, suddenly became his only advantage. He knew the sidewalk. He knew the flow.

Without a conscious thought, he shoved his table aside, sending his last two Everlast Solar Fans skittering across the grimy pavement. The obsidian drone above shifted, its emerald beam never leaving him. Lew didn't look up again. He just ran.

Not a sprint, not a graceful dash, but a frantic, pigeon-like scurry. He ducked under the arm of a startled businessman, swerved around a bewildered tourist, his old suit flapping. The hum followed, a relentless, growing pressure in the air. The green dot was a spotlight on his back, a brand.

He knew the alleys. He knew the service entrances. He knew the blind spots. He plunged into a narrow gap between a laundromat and a defunct deli, the air thick with the smell of stale grease and detergent. The drone couldn't follow, not directly. He heard it, the hum momentarily displaced, repositioning, hovering above the alley mouth.

Lew scrambled over a overflowing dumpster, his shins scraping, his breath tearing in his chest. He could feel the pressure of the drone's gaze, the unseen, algorithmic eye scanning for him. He imagined it calculating probabilities, analyzing his escape vectors.

He burst out onto another, less crowded street, dizzy and disoriented, his throat raw. The drone was already there, repositioned, though higher now, a malevolent jewel in the sky. The emerald beam was still there, unwavering.

Survival. Lew, the man of mundane routines, had never considered the word beyond making rent or finding his next meal. Now, it was a visceral, terrifying imperative. His mind, usually slow and muddied, sharpened with a clarity born of pure terror.

There! A delivery truck, a beast of an eighteen-wheeler, was pulling away from a loading dock. Lew didn't hesitate. He scrambled into the narrow space between the trailer and the brick wall, just as the truck began to roll. He pressed himself against the gritty bricks, feeling the tremor of the truck's engine vibrating through his bones. The drone, for a moment, hesitated, its emerald beam dancing wildly over the metal skin of the truck before settling back on the now-moving anomaly.

The truck picked up speed, rumbling down the street, providing a brief, exhilarating shield. Lew closed his eyes, exhaling a shuddering breath that felt like it had been trapped in his lungs for sixty years. He risked a peek. The drone was visible in the gap between the truck and the buildings, a dark, patient sentinel. But the green light was gone. Temporarily obscured? Lost?

He didn't know. He just held on, the vibrations of the massive vehicle a strange comfort against the terror that had just become his new reality. When the truck finally slowed for a traffic light several blocks away, Lew dropped out, landing awkwardly on his knees. His suit was ripped, his hands scraped, his entire body trembling.

He looked up. The sky was still a searing blue, the sun still beat down with indifferent cruelty. The hum had vanished. The obsidian tear-drop was gone.

Lew Bookman, the fixture, the minor component, the commonplace man whose life was a treadmill built out of sidewalks, picked himself up. He clutched the last two remaining fans, somehow still in his grasp. He didn't know what they were for anymore, but they were his. He was still here.

But the world had changed. Three o'clock had come and gone. And Lew Bookman knew, with a chilling certainty, that Mr. Death was just getting started.