Vultures

He was a salmon colored fellow with a horrific shroud of acne across the topography of his vulturine features.

The redheaded rhino behind the glass sneered at him with an expression usually reserved for prison guards. She watched the pink man slide across the lobby and leave the building. At the doors, she checked the street with a quick side-to-side then traced the man’s path across the street and around the corner and spotted his stocking cap swaying in the delta of heads milling at an intersection fifty yards ahead of her. She glanced at the street signs above him and unpuzzled his destination. She turned into the alley that would eventually empty into the parking lot of the apartment complex where she had first discovered him weeks ago. The gun had warmed in her pocket and she caressed its shape and jagged features, the heat of her hand moistened the lining in her pocket, glazing the weapon. The robotics in her brain took control and she found herself on a stoop in a shadow, staring at discount signs in the window of a convenience store, the freezing sweat crawling down her temple.  

illustration by Ande Parlow