William Porter took a pull from his cheaply rolled cigarette.

  “You know, last week I had real Jamacan tobacco.”

  “You? Nonsense.”

  Answered Charles Sturner, his colleague on patrol.

  “Bill, with your salary as a patrolman, you wouldn’t come even close to that stuff. They would not even let you in the same district where you could get this type of tobacco.”

  Porter exhaled.

  “Sir, do you call me a liar? It was over at Benning’s place. Some scavengers found it on the continent. They let me have a taste. And let me tell you, it was truly delicious. Not like the stuff they grow up north in the glasshouses.”

  Sturner, shaking his head on his colleague's nonsense, surveyed the surroundings from the car.

  “Half of those so called scavengers never have been to the continent and those who had been wouldn’t talk to the likes of us.”

  They were on a patrol in the Downter District and it was as dull as always. People shambled around, attending to their tasks, street urchin ran around trying to beg for money.

  And the drunkards lay in the darker corners, murmuring about something or other to themselves. The air was smelling like cold dead pork, coming from the meat packaging plant, which dominated Downter District.

  Most locals worked there, or were otherwise depending on Downter’s Cannery, owned by some rich guy from the upper district. Not that Sturner knew his name, nor did he care about it.

  He opened the car’s window in order to ventilate the smoke piling up from Bill’s cigarette. From looking at the clock mounted at the street corner he surmised that he still had several hours on patrol. The prospect of listening to Porter’s nonsense for that long wasn’t inviting.

  “What? There are a lot of scavengers pulling out trash on the mainland. Don’t be such a jerk only because you never met one.”

  “Porter, I am not doubting that there are some, I am merely doubting that they would talk to you.”

  His colleague threw his hands in the air.

  “Excuse me, what’s your bloody -”

  “Shut up, someone is coming.”

  Sturner dodged the hands of the waving Porter and looked at the fast approaching figure of a woman. She was dressed poorly, like most of the locals. She had a worried expression. Sturner hoped that she wasn’t coming to them. It had been a quiet shift and he loathed the idea of being forced to step out of the car.

  The woman finally arrived at his window, much to Sturner’s displeasure. He did not speak to her but seized her up with a look of bored annoyance native to all public servants.

  “Officer?”

  The woman asked in a hopeful tone. Sturner, now having his hopes of a quiet afternoon dashed, looked back to the passenger seat onto Porter. But his colleague made no signs picking up the conversation.

  Forced to answer Sturner replied.

  “What is it?”

  “Officer, I tried to get inside the lodging house because I wanted to visit my husband working at the Cannery but it is closed and a horrific stench is coming from -”

  Confronted by this barrage of words Sturner held his hand up and stopped the woman.

  “Woman, slow down for Saint’s Sake! What do you want from us?”

  The woman took a deep breath and began anew.

  “I am Andrea Tallow. I wanted to visit my husband, who works at the Cannery. He and his shift mates are living at that board house over there.”

  She pointed at a wooden structure. It was in a poor condition and was two floors high. Rusty pipes providing heat ran outside the walls connecting to the central heating plant of Downter District. It was obvious that living in that barrack would be miserable, even more then just living here in general.

  Aside its more than usual bad condition, the boarding house wasn’t anything special. A lot of factories provided subsidized living for their workers, most of them cutting costs wherever they could.

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  “Well, Ms Tallow, it’s the middle of the day. The workers are probably all at work. Nothing special to lock up their lodgings while they’re gone, if you’d ask me.”

  Sturner really didn’t want to exit his patrol car just for a locked door and some more than usual stench. The whole district was reeking, and the people in it even more. No reason to get excited.

  “No Sir, my husband, he is ill. He has gotten permission to stay away from work for a day in order to recover. I wanted to visit him to make sure that he has everything he needs. Beside that, there is always a janitor cleaning the place while the workers are gone. Somebody should be always inside to open up.”

  Surprised that the hygienic guidelines imposed by the Ecclesiate were actually enforced at this shabby place, Sturner gave up on arguing his way out exiting his clean car.

  “Bloody hell…” He mumbled under his breath. “Porter, get out. You coming with me.”

  Porter, surprised by this command, attempted to protest.

  “But.. -”

  “Shut it, and move your backside before I tell everybody that you are visiting Benning’s!”

  His colleague then existed the car, mumbling something about trust under his breath. Sturner, pleased by extending his plight on his fellow patrolman, stepped out of the car.

  Right into something vaguely brown and wet. After extracting his boot out of this, he threw a resentful look at the woman standing next to him, who didn’t seem to notice.

  There was no sense in prolonging it, so he locked the now empty patrol car and approached the boarding house. Porter, carelessly tossing his cigarette on the street, followed him along Ms. Tallow.

  “So you are saying that somebody should be inside?” Asked the now annoyed Porter.

  “Yes, there has to be.”

  Sturner took a look around before stepping on the wooden porch in front of the main entrance. There was nothing special about this part of Downter District. What he saw was the normal filth, poverty and apathy to the surrounding conditions.

  As he stood in front of the door he tried the most obvious first, and tried to open it with the doorknob. It didn’t bulge.

  “Sir, I – I already tried..” Whimpered Ms. Tallow.

  The patrolman looked at her displeased. Porter chuckled at him, earning himself an equally grumpy look.

  Sturner then formed a fist and banged loudly on the door.

  “This is patrolman Sturner from the Downter Constabulary! I order you to open up!”

  Receiving no answer, he repeated his actions. He waited for a few moments but there was no reaction. After glancing at Ms. Tallow he ordered Porter.

  “Go check the windows. Look for a side entrance, while you are at it.”

  Porter sighed but went to look for a window, which wasn’t boarded up by wooden planks. After three minutes, where he occasionally knocked at the blocked windows on the ground level, he came back.

  “No reactions, no side entrance. Seems like nobody is home.”

  Sturner asked the woman.

  “Are you really sure that you husband is in there? Maybe he went to a doctor, or a priest. Maybe there is some local festival going on?”

  Maybe the workers and everybody else in the building just went of for some reason. Because as it stood right now, Sturner’s only way to proceed would be breaking down the doors.

  This he didn’t want to do, as there would surely be complaints by the Cannery that a patrolman damaged their property for some stupid reason. Sturner didn’t want to deal with that. Hell, he didn’t want do be here at the first place.

  “Doesn’t sound to me that there would be any festivities right now, Sturner.” Porter said after taking a look around.

  “Isn’t there somebody who has the keys in the cannery?” He continued.

  Ms. Tallow, shaking her head, answered.

  “I don’t know, I never knew anybody else beside my husband in that place.”

  Just about then a person came to them. It was a man dressed in workers clothes, albeit in a better quality. He wasn’t fat, but one could see that he was better fed then most here.

  “You, what are you doing here? Did something happen?” the man asked the patrolmen standing before the entrance of the boarding house.

  Sturner and Porter looked at each other. They feared that they had been approached by the one most irritating thing in their line of duty, a concerned citizen.

  “I am patrolman Porter, this is patrolman Sturner” Porter pointed.

  “We are here on a…” He glanced on Ms. Tallow “Complaint made by a citizen. Step away and do not obstruct us.”

  “Do not obstruct you? Boy, you are on Cannery property. And while you are here you can - you will help me figure out why one entire meat packing line failed to show up.”

  Sturner was not happy with the man’s attitude. But he couldn’t say anything. If this guy really was an employee, one of higher rank, in the Cannery, Sturner would not hinder him. He wasn’t paid high enough to compete with the authority the Cannery held in Downter.

  “What is your name?” He asked.

  “My name is Edward Peek. I am the supervisor of the sods living here and I demand to know why none of them showed up this morning. We have already lost a lot of money by their absence.”

  “Maybe he has a key.” Added Porter, lighting a new cigarette. He wasn’t supposed to do that, but it was his only way to signalize disrespect towards the supervisor without coming into direct trouble.

  Edward Peek had in the grand scheme of thing only little authority. But he enjoyed every last drop of it. And of course he had spare keys to the bearding house.

  “Why is it closed?” He asked. “And why does it stink here so horrendously?”

  “You tell us.” Answered Porter, relieved that this small matter would be resolved soon. He really wanted to go back to his car. Before any other people would bother him with their petty problems.

  Peek stepped to the entrance, inserted the key and turned it in the lock. Pleased by the clicking sound, made by the unlocking mechanism, he threw the door open. He opened his mouth ready to bellow into the house and curse out any unlucky lad he would see. But his plans were interrupted by black smoke pouring out. His outburst was stopped even before it started and Peek was then paralyzed by the otherworldly stench which hit him next. This stench was so vile and intense, that it was almost physically tangible. If one had to describe it, one could described it as a thousand rotting carcasses, combined with a strong note of death and doom.

  Subsequently, to Peek’s horror, the black smoke turned out to be thousands of black, thick flies pouring directly out of the opening. This swarm of vermin smashed into the first thing outside the door, which was the face of the unlucky supervisor.

  Peek felt his face being hit by hundreds of flies forcing themselves into his opened mouth, his nostrils and even his ears. This woke him finally up from his shock and he jumped to the ground with a loud yelp. Sturner, who was standing next to him, dashed away from the door and fell from the porch. Ms. Tallow started to scream before stumbling down and landing firmly on her backside on the filth-filled street.

  Porter was the furthest away from the carnage and after a short shock belled.

  “Shut the fucking door!”

  Sturner managed to get on his feet, closed his eyes and mouth and plunged to the door. He grabbed it and managed to pull it shut, while enduring the assault of flies and reek.

  Then he looked down on himself and threw away his jacket, now crawling with flies. Peek was rolling around on the ground, retching dozens of flies mixed with bile out of his mouth.

  Sturner checked his face, hair and ears for insects and after finding that most of them flew out into sky, or Peeks face, he asked in a shocked tone.

  “What, by all the Saints, was that?”

  Porter, equally baffled, observed the door, which was now vibrating. Their opening had apparently agitated the damnable insects and they were keen on following their cousins and brothers out if the boarding house. Or whatever they were to them. Porter didn’t know the family structures of flies.

  “I – I don’t know. I never saw something like that. What should we do?”

  His colleague glanced on the now whimpering and vomiting Peek.

  “I think we should call for backup.”