“So how long you going to keep up this ruse? *Pitch*.”
“As long as it takes,” he replies generically, shifting his long legs nervously again. “Do (he indicates behind him), do these *people* have to follow you everywhere you go?”
“The Eightyeights? Of course. You know that.” She paused, thinking about what to say next. “Bad luck to stare at the ocean this time of day, though, they believe. Have to face away. Like the bear.”
“Ted?” He dares to glance back in its direction, centered in the sandy passageway that runs between the two halves of Sunklands Institute.
Another pause. “We can call him that. Or her.”
“What’s with this Tiki curse anyway?… riddling the town. Saddling it.”
Wheeler paused longer this time and decided not to even answer Baker Bloch, currently disguised as thought-to-be obsolete VHC City originating vampire Pitch Darkly. Married to Mary instead of Wheeler. The reason for his being.
“You can’t keep postponing the inevitable,” she said after staring into the hateful ocean for a while, bright in the fairy blue light. The light of the Devil, some say. 10:01. The Eightyeights couldn’t handle it, thus the turning. Wheeler was, in contrast, soaking it all in. Pitch was just glancing all around, shifting his feet and legs and arms. And glowing eyes. “You’ll wake up next to Mary one morning, perhaps one much like this one, and realize she’s just a symbol of something bigger. ‘Mary me,’ I said so long again that I can’t recall where and how.
“Boston?” Pitch said, and then corrected himself. “No, not Boston.”
“Not Miami,” Wheeler also offered. They both sat there, trying to remember the circumstances surrounding the event. It was also the day he met Mary; he did recall that. Reel reel reeling them in. Just like now.
“Caught another one!” she cried gleefully just over at the newly placed dock.
“Wonderful dear! A *whopper* this time!” he observed.
“Just like your story,” Wheeler hissed over through folded hands.
Sunklands 
