Page 52 of In the Nick of Time
“Excuse me? What?” Nick wanted nothing more than to scramble away from The Undertaker. He’d been creepy enough in the restroom the other day, but now he was downright frightening.
“You heard me the first time. I don’t like repeating myself.”
“You… don’t like repeating yourself. Okay. Now what?”
“Now what, you ask. Hmm.”
The Undertaker tapped his bottom lip in what Nick thought was supposed to induce fear. Spoiler alert, Nick was already scared. The Bloefeld imitation sans scar and cat was enough. Who knew, maybe the guy did have a cat hidden away somewhere.
Regardless of the fear and panic threatening to overwhelm him, Nick stared back at his captor, memorizing what he could see of him. The man seemed to be average height, maybe a little thick around the middle. Physically, he was nothing like Doug but possibly close to the same age.
Aside from the ridiculous hat and suit he was—undistinguished. If not for his unconventional choices in haberdashery, Nick might never have noticed him. His voice was neither high nor low. His eyes seemed to be a vague color of pale brown along with what hair Nick could see under the hat. Boring.
“Are you sure your moniker isn’t Bland Man?”
Nick hadn’t intended on saying that out loud—the words had just slipped out like they so often did. Seriously,nowhisfilter was going to fail him? Behind The Undertaker, one of the henchmen pressed his lips together as if he was trying not to react with a chuckle.
The Undertaker hissed at Nick, revealing a set of very straight, boring teeth.
“Did you just hiss at me?” Nick was astounded. Who hissed at people? Toddlers, that’s who.
“Stop. Talking.”
“See, this is going to be a problem for me. When I’m nervous, I talk,” Nick babbled. “I can’t stop myself. The words just flow like the Mississippi under a flood watch. And right now, having been abducted and deposited into what seems to be a fucking coffin, I am very, very nervous, so I’m channeling the Bard. That’s Shakespeare, in case you didn’t know.”
“Stop. Talking.”
“Why? What’s it to you? You clearly have the upper hand. The upper hiss.” He laughed because his mouth was absolutely out of his control. “Is hissing a thing for you? Like your signature?”
Nick was really wishing he could roll back the last few hours and that none of this kidnapping bullshit had happened yet. But he could only manipulate small amounts of time, and he’d rather this experience was over—with him alive—rather than have to relive it.
For fuck’s sake, he hadn’t been serious when he’d mentioned getting himself kidnapped at The Ace of Clubs. This was not part of the plan.
One of the henchmen moved. Nick couldn’t see where he went but heard the shuffle of his very large feet.
“Boss, there’s someone outside,” said Henchman Number One.
The Undertaker scowled. Wherever they were, having someone arrive was not part of the plan. That was good, right? Itmeant that this pathetic gang of three was it and he possibly had a chance of escaping. He wasn’t tied up or held down in any way. Really, Nick felt, this was a second-rate abduction.
If he got the chance to escape, he was taking it.
In the meantime, wasn’t this the part where Nick learned the sad life of The Undertaker and why he’d resorted to a life of crime?
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “The kidnapping and killing?” He took a wild guess. “Are you a failed agent? Like that Rodney the Rodent guy I learned about earlier in the week?”
“I am not a failed agent,” The Undertaker responded. “I am unrecognized genius.”
“Oh.” Nick nodded within the confines of the coffin. “Unrecognized genius. So you retaliate by kidnapping and murdering people? It was you who killed Agent Schoenhut, wasn’t it? The coffin is a dead giveaway.”
“Agent Schoenhut proved to be weak, just like the others. But his power could have been useful to me had I been successful.”
Nick wasn’t sure if he was glad or not that he’d gotten the creep to start talking. This talk of powers was creepy.
“Um, weak? How so? Why would you want to kill people? I just don’t understand.” For now, he was ignoring the harvest bit. And he wasn’t about to ask where “the others” were. A flash of Billy Mumy and the cornfield from that ancientTwilight Zoneepisode went through his head.
“I’m just… hurrying the process along. That’s my gift, you see. I can feel how you die.”
Nick thought about this for a moment.
