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1103 Words
After she once more reminded him to give more detail he added, he repeated and spelled out the entire list of words he had his mother had gone over this morning trying to annoy her, but it didn’t seem to work.
“Rough, grudge, stunt, thumb, once, another, does, trouble, cousin, began.”
After describing how he went to school and the path they took, Matt shrugged. “There were a lot of people going in. I only knew Christie Miller and Rodric Sales, though. After I went to my classroom, Miss Aberdeen taught us math before giving us our spelling test.”
Matt went on to list everything else they went through that day, along with who he sat by during each period.
It was when he said he went to the bathroom that Investigator Ignite asked for more information.
“Did you see anyone in the hall when you walked there? Smell anything worse than usual? Did the water taste funny?”
Matt was going to shake his head, but paused as he remembered seeing a teacher talking to someone at one of the doors.
“Miss Harrowfall was talking to someone at the end of the hallway. They kissed before she shut the door, but the wind was blowing, and it didn’t smell good. Like old trash.”
Investigator Ignite’s eyes narrowed, and she asked, “Which door, and can you describe the man in question?”
Matt nodded. “The green door at the end of the ‘E’ hallway. The one that goes out to the back entrance next to the playground, but where we aren’t supposed to go, since it’s where they bring in the food.”
“And what did he look like?”
Matt thought about it and tried to replay the moment, but nothing really came to him besides the smell…until he remembered the jacket that the man was wearing.
“The man was wearing a thick jacket with sleeves that were torn up. I remember thinking Mom would never let Dad leave the house with such a torn jacket. It was orange and brown, I think. He also had a bushy beard and had an earring in his left ear.” Matt smiled as more information came to him.
He was about to continue when Investigator Ignite’s eyes narrowed to slits as she nodded once slowly.
“Do you think you can identify the man if you see him again?”
Matt chewed his lip but nodded after a few seconds.
The image seemed pretty clear in his memory, now that he had thought about it.
Once he said that, Investigator Ignite turned to his parents and got their permission, seemed to pull a pad out of nowhere, and asked. “Can you read this out loud to me, please?”
“I hereby swear what I will say is the truth, to the best of my knowledge. If I” Matt looked up at his parents seeing the next word, as he didn’t recognize it.
His mother read it out loud for him. “Deliberately, honey. It means on purpose.”
“If I deliberately lie, I can be charged with—”
He looked up once more, but this time Investigator Ignite answered. “Perjury. It means lying after swearing to tell the truth.”
“If I deliberately lie, I can be charged with perjury.”
Investigator Ignite nodded once he finished. “If you don’t know, just say so, and you won’t be in any trouble, so don’t worry. But if you recognize the man you saw, please just say so.”
Handing him the pad, Matt saw a man with brown hair and a beard, but the man’s skin was ruddier than the man he saw before, and the earring was the wrong shape.
Matt swiped through half a dozen people, not seeing anyone who matched the man in his memory, but Investigator Ignite didn’t seem worried, and just gave him another twelve people to look at.
This time, Matt stopped at person number four.
They weren’t a perfect match, with the beard shorter and better groomed, but the earring was the same, and the look in the man’s eyes was enough to make Matt certain he had the right man.
“It’s this guy. I’m sure.”
Investigator Ignite caught his eyes and asked, “How sure are you, Matt? This is important. Don’t lie to make any of us happy.”
That made Matt question himself for a moment, but looking again, he was even more sure. “It’s him.”
Investigator Ignite looked to Healer Cox, who nodded, but Matt wasn’t sure why he was important. She wasn’t asking him questions, after all.
After that, Investigator Ignite and he went through the rest of his day, but she was less picky about the small details that she had agonized over earlier.
Once he ended his recount of the day with his going to bed, she thanked him before leaving so quickly, he was pretty sure she had teleported, like from the movies.
Healer Cox patted Matt’s shoulder and said, “Well done, Matt. You did good work today. I’m sure you helped out a lot.”
Matt looked up between his parents and Healer Cox’s and asked, “Does the Investigator think it was that man who got me sick?”
Healer Cox looked to his parents but eventually answered, “That would be my guess. Orange and brown are the Junipers colors, and the jacket sounds like their Deep County workers uniform, so he would have been outside the safe zone. As for anything beyond that, we’ll have to wait for her investigation to be finished. If he did come in contact with an undead rift, and both didn’t report it and infected half a dozen people, he’ll be in trouble, though.”
After Healer Cox checked a few more things, a nurse brought in food, which Matt hungrily scarfed down. Or tried to.
As the pasta hit his tongue and his brain registered the taste, he spit it back up immediately.
His parents were worried that something was wrong, but Healer Cox sighed and said, “This is unfortunate, but not unexpected. It’s a side effect from one of the medicines we use to prevent the spreading of the disease. About ten percent of the recipients have an incredibly heightened sense of taste and smell for a while after. Nothing to worry about, though. It will fade in another three days or so. We’ll get some more bland food sent in.”
- Writer
