Redstone: Sanctuaries
Chapter 8: Urban Legend

"You drive?" Hubbert couldn't hide his surprise seeing Jose take his place at the side of the wheel.

"Yes, come on in!" Jose urges. "Quick, quick, before we get caught!"

Caught who? Hubbert shouted the question in his heart as he placed the bag containing his camera equipment into the back compartment, then sat there. Before long, their car had already run smoothly towards the manor's main gate, with Jose chuckling victorious in front of the wheel.

Hubbert only understood why when he looked back and saw some people running towards them from a distance.

The horn sounded, the gate opened, and in an instant they had already escaped into the street. Their pursuers had already given up halfway.

"Who was that?" Hubbert asked tensely.

"Boris, my worker," Jose replied casually. He glanced at the rearview mirror, making sure no one was chasing him. "She's always insistent on wanting to escort me everywhere."

"It should be, right?"

"The car won't be enough" Jose said in surprise. "You, your camera bag, and then Brooks. This vehicle is small. While if they run around the car or use another car, we'll look flashy."

"I think a marquis should look striking."

"Unless the marquis wants an impromptu inspection."

Hubbert laughs. Judging from the expression of the gatekeeper earlier, it did not seem like this once Jose left suddenly leaving his guard. Even though he was already a high nobleman, Jose was still what he used to be at Bjork; and that fact made Hubbert more relaxed. Like finding a piece of familiar stuff in a foreign place.

"Ah, that's Brooks!" Jose said as he honked twice and pulled over the car.

Brooks is a tall and strapping man in his mid-thirty. His face was square, neatly shaved. The man was wearing a typical police navy blue uniform. As soon as the car stopped by the side of the road, Hubbert immediately opened the door and flung the body on Jose's side.

"It has to be interesting, because you called out all of a sudden," he said as he took off his hat. Hubbert looked back with a gesture like he had just realized there was someone else in the car. He turned full and smiled widely. "Hello, I've never seen you. Just moved? My name is Brooks, Karl Brooks!"

"Hubbert Decker," Hubbert shook his outstretched hand. "From Daily Bjork's. I just stopped by."

"He's my guest" Jose chimed in from the front of the wheel, already running back his car. "Be polite, Brooks."

"I'm always polite!" brooks protested while fanning his face with his hat. He turned his head out the car window and looked around. "You're driving alone again" she cried, "your bodyguards must cry because they're always left. Is your wife too? Mubazir's right."

Jose laughs. "Mrs. Decker, tell us again what you saw with us, your story might shut Brooks up."

Hubbert told me what he saw in as much detail as possible. He could see from Brooks' expression that the cop didn't believe him.

"Let me repeat what I heard, mate." Brooks turned his body back, looking directly at Hubbert's eyes without blinking. "You're a Bjork newspaper reporter. On the way, you see people being hanged and your taxi driver being quiet. You know that hanging laws don't exist in this kingdom. You know that it's a primitive punishment that doesn't fit the rules. Then why are you quiet?"

"Redstone is an autonomous region of Albion! I don't know what rules apply here, where might I interfere?" Hubbert forced himself to sound plain and calm.

Hubbert. "I'm not lying" he said.

"Brooks didn't mean to accuse you of lying" Jose said in a calming tone. "I myself feel it's a strange thing. If I were you and I were to see some strange thing from the cab, I would definitely ask to stop in order to observe more clearly. But you didn't do it. Like Brooks, I wonder what your reasons are. Is there anything that makes you feel like it's normal?"

"Or do you just feel it's so unnatural that you're afraid to observe more clearly?" timpal Brooks.

In Hubbert's mind again spun shabby figures dressed in cotton swarming under the gallows, cheering watching humans die. The scene felt increasingly vague and distant, as if he did not really see it, like a dream in the morning that was getting more and more hazy.

"I ..." Hubbert frowned, trying to find an excuse, but found none. He did only see the incident at a glance from behind the glass of the car, then even though he felt astonished, but somehow completely unmoved to go down or stop.

"Well, don't force it" Brooks said sympathetically, then returned his body to the front. "You want to bet with me, Jose? I'm guessing we won't find anything there."

Jose just smiled, not slowing down the speed of his car at all. "Brooks, you know the truth would be even more terrifying if we didn't find anything."

"What do you mean?" hubbert asked quickly, "why is it more terrible?"

"You're not the first person to see an execution being carried out there" Brooks said. His eyes looked out, into the streets. "Then, around the eighteenth century I think, on two or three plots of the wheat field there was indeed a special place for execution. But now the execution is not carried out here. Criminals will be sent to Aston or Hadley will be called in to carry out executions in the middle of the city as a warning to the public."

"So?" Hubbert could not guess what he wanted to say to her. What does it mean that there are groups of people who like to hang people secretly? Is there an underground crime?

But he was wrong.

"Everyone reported seeing beheading or whipping or bone breaking done in the wheat field" Brook continued in a heavy tone. "But when I came in there to check, you know what I saw?"

Hubbert doesn't know. He can't guess.

Jose replied, "There's nothing there, Mr. Deckers. Bodies, blood, people, everything's gone as if nothing's happened."

A chill came upon Hubbert's back. Suddenly the sun outside no longer stings.

"Since then no one has made an official report, people are still looking, but the news is only circulating in untraceable rumors. Everyone began to accept it as an illusion, as one of the urban myths." Brooks shrugged his shoulders. "But usually people only see it from afar, so there is no further investigation. The expert in the opinion just said that it was an optical illusion. Just understand, because there's no evidence."

"Newly this time someone saw him up close," Jose added. "I wish I could see it this time, too."

"Well how, Mr. Decker?" Brooks turned his head, giving him a wide grin. "You wanna bet? Guess if what you saw was real or not!"

Hubbert swallowed. Sometimes he feels that humans are the most disgusting and dangerous creatures in the world. But at a time like this, Hubbert still felt that seeing humans would be a much better choice. Although he knew that his choice was inhuman, he hoped that what he saw was indeed a real human being.

***