A New Case File

Case files of the Imaginary Assassin

By John Cantrell

Case #392: <unnamed>

Bert had been following the subject for 3 days now. The kill was going to be tricky, but if he was being honest with himself, that wasn’t why it was taking so long. He was stalling. He had a soft spot for abandoned ideas. After all, he was one himself, and hunting his own kind always made him uneasy. Just because this one was made up of line and not words didn’t mean they weren’t the same.

The artist had used bright colored pencils, so the target stood out. Easy to see, even in a crowd.  The almost, but not quite round yellow sun it dragged along like an anchor helped a bit as well. Thin lines though. They were going to be sharp. Charcoal was better. Softer.

Bethany must have been happy when she drew him.

Dammit. He got made. The blue squiggles that made up it’s eyes looked at Bert and realized he was tailing it. It ran. Sort of. It’s hard to describe a living doodles movements in human terms. Suffice it to say, it moved very quickly away from Bert.

Halfway down an alley one of it’s lines got caught on the edge of a dumpster and Bert caught up with it. When it say the pencil in his hand a black swirl appeared in the middle of what must be it’s face and it screamed. The lines that made up it’s form exploded outward and wrapped themselves around Bert and cut through his suit and into his flesh.

Bert pushed and ignored the pain. It had to be against a hard surface for this to work. The trash bin would have to do. He was loosing blood quickly. The lines around his wrist tightening faster, trying to disarm him. Finally he managed to press the things head against the cold metal and he wiped the pencils eraser along the lines connecting it to the rest of it’s body. The screaming stopped.