Quagmire: Day 2

Word Count: 12,018

Summary of Events:

Jesse was canvassing the streets of Chicago looking for another story and found one when a fight broke out between two rather evenly matched men and due to its proximity to a grocery store became a food fight. Arriving home, Jesse accidentally collided with the neighbour who rented the main floor and ended up getting in a fight with the man because the man didn't like Irishmen. Jesse was up late working on an article for the morning edition of the Tribune when he heard a knock at the door . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
"Shielding the flame carefully, Jesse crossed the room and opened the door. Georgia wasn't there.

He stepped out of the room and listened again. There was silence for a moment before knocking sounded again. It didn't sound angry or urgent, which seemed rather puzzling for this hour. How did they expect to wake anyone with such soft knocking?

Carefully he opened the hall door. No one there either — not that he expected as much, being as he could see both sets of dining room doors beyond, neither of which were open.

Being as the doors between the dining room and the living room had glass panels in them Jesse didn't have to open the door to see if anyone was there, he just made his way through and continued on, opening the door into the upper entrance hall, where there was no one, and the knocking didn't seem to be getting any louder, but it sounded at regular intervals.

Jesse continued down to the lower hall, where he still found no one, nor in the vestibule.

Standing in the vestibule, Jesse listened. If anything, the knocking sounded fainter than it had before.

Still, Jesse unfastened the bolts on the door and opened it to peer outside. No one was on the doorstep. And, thanks to the streetlights, he could see there was no one knocking on any of the other doors of nearby houses.

It unsettled Jesse, as well as puzzled him. He closed the door and relocked it, then wound his way all the way back up, closing all of the doors behind him — and locking the one that led out of the living room into the hall as well — until he reached the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

There was the porch door. And now that he was listening, the knocking sounded louder than it had down by the front door.

Opening the kitchen door caused the sound of the knocking to get louder yet. Jesse crossed the room and unlocked the door onto the porch.

Standing, bundled into a coat and looking as cold as Jesse felt with the bitter, wintry night air biting through his shirtsleeves easily, was a rather young boy. He looked up at Jesse warily. Jesse could tell at once it wasn't David gone on shenanigans because the boy's eyes were brown.

"You are Jesse Haden?" the boy asked.

"Yes," Jesse replied, not sure how the boy would know him.

"Come quickly, there's a good story," the boy said.

"Okay," Jesse said quietly, not sure what to make of it. "Just let me get my coat."

Jesse closed the door and stepped back inside. He went to his room and blew out the candle, as well as the lamp, before putting his jacket on and hurrying around to the hall to get his coat and hat before finally slipping out onto the rear porch where the boy stood.

On quiet feet Jesse followed the boy down the stairs, through the back gate, and down the alley."