Today's Word: Alpo


Twelve angry men chased Hubert through the abandoned warehouse. Small arms fire broke the silence in booming coughs, but Hubert was not hurt, and so he ran on.

Outside the warehouse lay a defunct parking lot, grown through with golden rod and crab grass. Hubert's footfalls upon the cracked macadam were like the thrumming gaffaws of a madman, echoing off the empty buildings and across the very dark bay to the east.

"Stop, Mr. Reese. You've nowhere to run and we are many!" said one of the men behind him , but Hubert ran on.

He ran until his lungs burned, his head throbbed, and the soles of his feet felt tenderized. They caught him -- all twelve of them -- near a small, empty fish camp diner. He stood hunched over, panting, his mouth a wide O. Tendrils of clear spittle hung suspended from his lips like narrow little fingers.

"God, why can't you hosers leave me alone?" asked Hubert when he had breath to speak.

"Because your nation needs you, Mr. Reese, said one of the twelve; the one called Tom. Tom's mother was a lush. She had once left Tom and his older brother in the station wagon while she drank herself loopy in a downtown bar. It had been hot that day, and Tom had passed out. When he awoke, the police was there and Tom's mother was being hauled away by two of them. Tom's brother, Eddie, was being hauled away as well; laid flat on a stretcher, a very white sheet over his face.

"I just want to be alone, Tom."

Tom was nonplussed by the use of his name. He had been working telepath recovery for nine years.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Reese, but that is not possible."

"You're so wrong, Tom."

Hubert pulled a .32 caliber pistol -- a tiny thing really -- from his coat pocket and buried deep in the cleft of his chin. He pulled the trigger, splattering his oh-so-powerful brain, along with not a little bone and blood, across the diner's front window.

"Damn," whispered Tom. He lifted his radio, the one that could only raise Central, and said, "Bear-4, Bear-4, this is Hound-8."

"Hound-8, Bear-4, what's your status," said the tinny voice at the other end.

"Another soup dejour, Bear-4. The bowl is cracked."

A pause, then, "Roger that, Hound-8. Bring the dogs back in for Alpo, over."

"Roger," said Tom, feeling disgusted, as he always did, when a runner offs himself. "You heard him, men. Alpo."

He started back the way they had come, following the telepath, giving no eye contact to the eleven men that came along behind.

Alpo. A hell of a lot of paperwork and bullshit.