The Incubus, Succubus and Son of Perdition Box Set: The Len du Randt Bundle Read Online Free PDF Page A

loved the
fresh smell of early morning air. There was a certain sense of purity in the
early morning breeze that one wouldn’t find after the rush-hour smog.
    Coffee , Simon thought. That’s what I’ll start my day with.
    It was his day
off and he wanted to savour every moment of it. ‘Where to begin,’ he said as he
looked in both directions up and down the road. He figured that he would get
started with a fresh cup of coffee and a muffin at a local coffee shop. From
there it would be a movie followed by a few hours’ worth of reading in the
park. The mall then , he thought. It’s closer to the movie theatres.
    ‘Good morning,’
he greeted a jogger. She frowned and side-stepped him before jogging away
without returning the greeting.
    It’s sad what
this world has come to , Simon thought, that two
strangers simply couldn’t greet each other anymore.
    He took another
deep breath and continued his stroll down the sidewalk. Simon wondered how many
people stopped for a moment to admire the beauty in a few golden rays of
sunlight as it passed through the leaves of overhead trees. He wondered how
many people even stopped to notice the cheerful chirping of the birds as they
announced the birth of a new day. At street level, rush-hour traffic was slowly
building up. Simon just shook his head at the expressionless faces in the cars
that drove past him.
    Solomon was
right. All this is truly a pursuit of wind; a mad rush for nothing.
    Even though he
too was part of the proverbial “rat race,” he never considered himself to be
one of the rats. Simon only did what he did for a living in order to pay the
bills at the end of the month. He found greater satisfaction in the smaller things
in life. He especially loved helping people. The real pleasure was in changing
lives; especially when they weren’t aware of it. It was the thrill of seeing
people’s lives altered for better that motivated and drove him. He never once
considered a financial award for what he did, and would never accept any if
ever offered. In a way, he felt like a super hero: Mild mannered computer geek
at day; defender of the innocents at night.
    Simon chuckled. Defender
of the innocents. Yeah right.
    He continued his
stroll toward the mall at a lazy pace, soaking in the beauty of his
surroundings. When he reached a small patch of flowers, Simon stopped. He
hunched down next to the flowers and picked one.
    ‘Samantha,’ he
said as he smelled the flower.
    Rolling the
little stem of the flower between his thumb and forefinger, Simon stood up and
continued walking.
     
     
    *    -    -   
-    *
     
     
    ‘ I hate you! ’
the girl screamed at her stepfather as loud as she could manage.
    ‘Don’t you raise
your voice at me, young lady,’ the man shouted back. ‘Just do as you’re told!’
    ‘You’re not my
boss! You’re not my father!’
    With that, she
stormed from the apartment and slammed the door behind her.
    ‘Go on, you
tramp,’ her stepfather hollered at the closed door. ‘See if I care. See if
anybody cares.’ He took a swig of his bottle of cheap brandy. ‘Nobody cares
about you! You hear?’ The stepfather grunted and fell down onto the couch. A
few minutes later he was fast asleep and snoring loudly.
     
     
    *    -    -   
-    *
     
     
    The slamming
door made Simon look up. A teenage girl walked from one of the cut-and-paste
houses down the road to the steps leading down to the street and sat down. She
covered her face in her hands and shook as she sobbed loudly.
    Simon wondered
if he should approach her. Something in him urged him to.
    ‘I hate him,’
she sobbed as Simon walked closer. ‘I hate that man.’
    Simon hunched
down in front of the girl. She looked up and forced herself to stop crying—as
if embarrassed to be crying at her age—and wiped at her face with her sleeve.
    Simon just
smiled at the girl. She didn’t say anything; didn’t know what to say to a
stranger that just walked up to her