This is the prose version of a project I've been working
on with one of my daughters.  The script version will eventually
be a situation comedy for TV.
    I'm certain a number of issues will be left unsaid here but
everything will be cleared up in future chapters.  If this
receives favorable response here, I'll release more chapters.

*****

    This story and all characters within are original and 
copyrighted to G.L. Sandborn.  2002

*****

    This will not be posted anywhere else.  After this posting,
it will be withdrawn pending final disposition of the finished
script.

*****




Email:  sandborn@kc.rr.com

Web:  http://home.kc.rr.com/sandborn




-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: TCA_1.txt

                     The Collection Agency
                           Chapter 1
                         G.L. Sandborn




     A lone figure stumbled across the busy street, narrowly
escaping cars in his attempt to get away.  He could feel his
heart pounding in his chest and his feet beating against the hard
surface as he dodged the last vehicles.  He ignored the honking
cars and shouts from their drivers.
     Gaining the far curb, he chanced a glance back at his
pursuers.  There were two of them.  Judging by how fast they were
gaining, they were much better conditioned.  The chase would be
over soon.  Then would come the capture, the rough handling and
finally incarceration.  He couldn't take that.  Dozens of times
before in his life he'd played out this sequence.  Each time more
intolerable than the last.  He wasn't going through it again.
     Turning into an alley, he pulled out his last option. 
Pointing a well-worn small caliber revolver at his pursuers, he
heard one call out a warning just before he pulled the trigger.
     The sharp report of the weapon echoed painfully off the
buildings and the muzzle flash momentarily blinded him.  He
turned and stumbled over a trash can, scraping a knee on the
gravel.  Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled towards the far
alley exit with increased urgency.  His shot did nothing.  He
could hear his pursuers on the move again.
     Knowing he wasn't going to make it unless he eliminated his
pursuers, he turned one more time and leveled his aging weapon
towards the approaching figures.  Still struggling with his
impaired night vision from the last shot, he took aim at the
nearest shadowy figure.  
     Before he could pull the trigger, something slammed into his
chest, driving the air from his lungs.  The crack of a large
caliber handgun stung his ears.  His arms ceased to work.  He
couldn't breathe.  His legs felt rubbery.  The pistol tumbled
from his hand.  Vile-tasting fluid filled his mouth, some
escaping down his chin.  His world began to spin as he fought to
take a breath.  It was like breathing through a plastic bag;
impossible.
     The single street light at the end of the alley grew dim as
he stopped struggling against the inevitable.  All the muscles in
his body stopped working at the same time.  He never felt himself
collapsing onto the rough gravel.  His last thought was how he
wasn't going back to jail again.

     A cherry red vintage Mustang convertible pulled to the curb
nearest the taped off area.  Despite the street being filled with
police, medical personnel, and curious onlookers, nobody seemed
to notice.  The door opened and a tall man with a short pony tail
and dressed all in black stood up, adjusted his long coat against
the cool early spring evening air and calmly walked towards a
sheet-covered figure on the ground.  His Eighteenth Century
riding boots crunched the gravel.  An empty can bounced away as
he carelessly kicked it.  
     His eyes moved left and right as he walked, taking in every
detail of his surroundings.  He listened carefully to the
conversations going on around him as he passed little groups of
police.
     "What was the time of death," one police officer asked
another.
     "About ten-thirty, give or take a couple of minutes," came
the reply.  
     "What happened?"
     "We arrived at the liquor over on Grant about two minutes
after the call came in.  Old man Ryan was already dead of a
gunshot wound to the chest.  Damn shame.  He would have been
seventy-two next month.
     "One of our Street Crime Detachment people spotted the
suspect about three blocks away.  He and his partner gave chase
when the suspect fled on foot.  Two shots were fired, one his and
one from Officer Williams.  The result is under the sheet over
there."
     The dark stranger turned his eyes towards a figure laying on
its back in the alleyway, partially covered in a white sheet. 
That must be his man.
     He approached the prone figure while mentally putting
together the officer's story.  He needed to do a report of his
own.  With a flick of his wrist, he produced what looked like a
small electronic organizer and began poking its screen with a
stylus.
     "This is the last one tonight," he said to no one in
particular.
     Satisfied that everything in his database was correct, he
knelt down to examine the corpse.  Lifting a corner of the sheet,
he wrinkled his nose at the sight.
     "Yuck," he said standing up.  "A face only a mother could
love."
     "What do you mean 'Yuck'?" came a voice from the robber's
corpse.
     "Nothing personal.  Just an observation," the stranger said,
going back to his organizer.
     "Yeah?  Well, it's pretty personal to me," the robber said,
standing up, indignantly adjusting his black leather jacket.
     "I said I'm sorry," the stranger replied without looking.
     The robber glanced towards the cops.  That glance became a
double-take.  "Hey, uh, you ain't a cop, are you?"
     The stranger chuckled.  "No, I'm not a cop."
     With another glance, the robber leaned closer to the
stranger.  "Why don't they act like they can hear us?"
     "Because they can't."
     The robber blinked a couple of times.  "I don't get it."
     Without looking, the stranger pointed at the robber's feet
before returning to his organizer.
     The late robber gasped as he jumped back a few feet, his
hand covering his mouth.  "No way!  That can't be...!"
     "Yup, you're dead," the stranger noted with detachment as he
continued to poke at his organizer.
     "WHAT?"  The man staggered back even further.
     With a satisfied grunt, the stranger tucked his organizer
inside his coat and pulled out a small horseshoe-shaped device. 
Fitting an inch long transparent cylinder into place, he looked
directly at the dead felon.  "I'm really sorry about this... 
Well, not really sorry.  More like 'Wow, what a bummer' than
actually sorry."
     "WHAT?"
     "You're repeating yourself."
     "WHAT?"
     "Look, buddy, you're dead.  The Intermediary Council has
ruled.  You're mine.  Get over it."  The stranger flashed a
degree of irritation towards the felon while adjusting something
on his device.
     The felon backed away, his hands held out in defense.  He
gibbered something about 'this couldn't be happening' and 'you
can't do this'. 
     The stranger just sighed and pointed the device at the
protesting felon.  Pressing a thumb button, he squinted as
streaks of blood-red energy lashed out at the dead felon's ghost,
enveloping his body in a crimson wrap.  An unearthly howl escaped
the writing mass as it shrank, dissolved, and finally
disappeared.
     Moments later, the stranger tapped the glass tube on his
weapon.  It was about half full of black, oily ooze.  "Not much
of a catch, if you ask me," he said, snapping off the tube and
depositing it behind an elastic loop on the inside of his coat. 
There it joined almost a hundred identical tubes, each held in
place by its own elastic restraint.
     Shoving his device back into a pocket, the stranger paused
one last time over the robber's now soulless body.  Yawning, he
stretched and looked past the arriving coroner's assistants.  It
would be dawn soon.  The end of his twelve-hour shift.  Time for
another collector to report for duty.  That was good.  He was
ready for some serious sack time.
     Climbing back into his Mustang, he revved the engine a
couple of times before driving off into the fading darkness.  If
anyone had been able to see him, they would have noticed his
cherry red vehicle fading from view until it disappeared
completely, gone from the fringes of the mortal world.

     


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