Bad Moon, Good Gnawer

[hazlogs]

[Jan 12. 1998. Late afternoonish.]

Industrial Sector, Southwest Side
Several blocks encompassing the southern ends of 13th, 14th and 15th Streets 
  extend in an area poor and abandoned, with but a few businesses struggling 
  to survive. Along the northern edge of the district is a junk yard filled 
  with old washers, dryers, tires, and the myriad other elements of 
  human-created unrecycled waste. Smoke pours from a few factories, and the 
  more productive factories to the east combine with it to lay a thin film of 
  dark ash across much of the streets. Other factories, and warehouses between 
  them, lie abandoned or are home to the poor; at night, from some of those 
  with windows, the orange glow of oil drums used for heating and light shine 
  dully through the grime. Small shops serve the few factory workers who 
  remain in the area beyond the end of the working day, or during the lunch 
  hours grudgingly allowed. In the northeastern corner there is slightly more 
  activity in bars offering drinking and even some gambling in dark corners. 
  Along this stretch of street, the alleyways have stairways to second-floor 
  rooms, with the occasional alley entrance occupied evening and night by 
  painted women making blatant offers to the male passersby. Southwards, on 
  the southern side of Grym Broders Avenue, the train station falls into 
  disrepair similar to the rest of the area.
Obvious exits:
Filthy Alley  Abandoned Factory  Medina Coffees  East  North  

Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (97% full).

Merria makes her way along with a bounce in her step completely incongruous 
  with her surroundings. She seems to be sight-seeing, more than heading 
  toward a specific destination.

Salem sits on an old lawn chair outside the abandoned factory, cigarette in 
  one hand and a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka in the other. Like a 
  bad-tempered king, he watches the street, slouched, shadows under his eyes, 
  his face drawn and tight, looking vaguely ill. There's a noticeable lack of 
  people near him.

Spying Salem and evidently recognizing him, Merria stops in her tracks and 
  waves cheerfully to him. "Hey, hi," she says with an apparently sincere and 
  sunny smile. "You were at Charlie's last night, weren't you?"

Salem moves his head only slightly, only as much as he has to in order to fix 
  the cheerful woman with narrow eyes. "Yeah." His voice has a rough edge and 
  a faint slur to it, plus traces of some European accent. "So were you."

Merria grins. "Be a good trick, recognizing you, if I hadn't been," she 
  observes. Taking this lack of outright hostility as encouragement, she 
  wanders over, stopping a few paces away from the man. "Where's your accent 
  from?" she asks curiously.

Salem watches Merria with all the friendliness of a rabid junkyard dog; even 
  the slight curl of his upper lip reveals a hint of teeth. "Bitch. I don't 
  have a fucking accent." He brings the bottle to his lips and takes a deep 
  swallow.

Merria's eyebrows go up. "Really? You mean everyone where you're from talks 
  that way?" Her eyes are dancing now, but there is no real malice in it.

Salem gulps down another mouthful of the cheap liquor. "I'm not from anywhere."

"Oh, I see," says Merria, apparently thinking this is pleasant small talk. 
  "Like that poem by whatserface, Emily Dickinson, 'I'm nobody, who're you?'"

Salem grunts and slouches an inch lower in the chair. "Go away," he rasps. "'M 
  busy."

Merria sighs and regards Salem sadly. "You're awfully angry," she says. "It 
  makes people scoot away from you. How come? Did someone screw you up?"

"Let 'm scoot," Salem slurs, brow lowering. Absently, he brings the 
  half-smoked cigarette to his lips and inhales.

"Well," Merria says reasonably, "it's not like I could stop 'em. You like 'em 
  scootin'?"

Salem's frown deepens, and he squints at Merria. "Didn't I tell you to go 
  away?"

Merria nods. "Unhunh. Just a minute ago." She shows no sign of complying, 
  though. "My name's Merria."

Anger broils sluggishly behind Salem's eyes, hampered perhaps by the amount of 
  alcohol in his bloodstream. "I don't care what the fuck your _name_ is," he 
  rasps. "I _told_ you to go _away_."

Merria wrinkles her nose, just a little, and sighs again. "How come you 'spect 
  people to do what you tell them?"

Salem grunts and swallows from the bottle again. "'Cause I kill 'm when they 
  don't." He bares his teeth in a poor imitation of a grin.

Unexpectedly, Merria throws her head back and laughs out loud. "But that's the 
  lousiest teachin' technique in the world," she says. "Everyone who might 
  have learned is dead." She grins down at the drunken wreck, then lifts her 
  hands to forestall a further threat. "It's okay, I'm goin'. Give it a rest, 
  Mr. Angry. I'll be seein' you around, I'm sure."

Salem's face twists in drunken anger at the laugh, and he lurches partway to 
  his feet to throw the bottle at her. "Piss off!"

Merria dances back and watches the bottle shatter with a readiness and a humor 
  which suggest that she is not quite as mindlessly innocent as she seems, and 
  that she was expecting that particular move. With a broad and not entirely 
  kindly grin she sketches a cheerful salute and turns to go. A few steps 
  later, she turns back, fishing something out of her pocket which proves, 
  when she throws it, to be an apple. It flies in a gentle arc aimed quite 
  carefully to land in Salem's lap. "Here," she says softly. "Catch."

Salem's hand - now empty - swings out with surprising speed to swat the apple 
  in mid-air, but his aim goes badly awry and the fruit lands where the Gnawer 
  intended it to land. With a bad-tempered snarl, he stands up, grabbing the 
  lawn chair by the back and stalking with it into the factory. The apple hits 
  the pavement and rolls a off the curb and into the street.

"So long," Merria calls sweetly, and continues, still bouncing, along the road.

From afar, Merria giggles evilly. I win.
Long distance to Merria: Salem laughs. Yeah, you do.

You manage to pull the cargo door at one end of the factory open far enough to 
  get through. You close it behind you.