Author's Note: So, how does this work? Each chapter of this ‘story’ has unique characters and a different situation…it’s a series of shorts, if you will. Shorts about people who aren’t heroes, exactly, but who are just there. Many characters will be anonymous, none will save the world. If you like reality, read on.

Each chapter is a one-shot. It’s possible that I may turn a chapter into a longer story, but it’s not really likely.

This chapter was fun :) and completely out-of-the-blue for me. Basic premise: A man and his wife venture out of their comfort zone to find someone long lost to them.

That said, I want to dedicate this to WildWolfFree17, who reviewed this for the first time when it came out not in this format, and also to Aikida, who has been the first one to review both 'Short Tales of Unimportant People' and 'Act III'. I love you guys to death!!

David and Lucille Eisenhauer sat behind the dashboard of their dark red Mazda Protégé. David tapped his class ring encircled index finger on the soft wood inlaid in the temperature board as he turned the heat higher in the small car. Lucille worried vaguely that the ice was too dangerous to drive in. The mechanic had said earlier that week that the tire treads were getting low.

The stoplight turned green again. David thought it was about time; at ten o clock at night there was no cross traffic, and the light had been red for an eternity. The only other car they’d seen that night had been an inconspicuous 92 Dodge Amni, skipping furtively from streetlight to streetlight on the still streets.

Lucille had never particularly wanted to visit this area of the city. She double checked that her door was locked with one hand as she fingered her new purple suede coat with the other. 45th Avenue was their turnoff; the Mazda’s left indicator reflected off of a decrepit church’s windows.

David cleared his throat nervously as he looked right and left for the mailbox that said 52. He frowned uncertainly. His wife suddenly found herself wishing for the trailer she’d been envisioning the entire car ride. An apartment building on its last legs, surely doomed to an impending detonation, rose awkwardly out of the gloom. The couple stared at the slimy bricks in dismay. 52 45th Avenue read the faded black and gold sign adjacent to the doorway.

The car idled. Right now the wind should be blowing ominously, thought Lucille. Instead the small, cracked parking lot flanking the building was completely still. Lucille wrinkled her nose in a most unladylike fashion as the stink of rotting leaves, exposed by the shrinking snow piles of February, reached it. David eyed the building nervously as he triple checked that his car was locked.

In silence the middle aged husband and wife climbed the three stairs up to the door. Lucille gasped and whipped around as a raucous catcall reached her ears. There was no danger; a street away, a man stood laughing crazily on the front porch of another building. Lights flickered on the ground floor, and two dark shapes dragged him back inside. Lucille shivered; next to her, David tried the door to 52 hurriedly. The single door was unlocked, the next one likewise.

Peeling, fake brass mailboxes lined the damp corridor they stepped into. David held up his cell phone’s light to them as his wife peered up a dark staircase.

“Looks like number 146.” His voice was gravelly and startled his wife out of her reverie. She nodded curtly and put a Versace-clad foot on the staircase. The dark red carpet sank beneath their shoes. The narrow hallway they arrived at briefly put David in mind of The Shining, though he didn’t mention that to Lucille, who was afraid of such movies and condoned them in her household.

Number 146 had no welcome mat on the threshold, as many of the other doors did, nor was there any indication on the door that someone lived there. David lifted his hand and rapped sharply three times on the door. Lucille shivered. The pale moonlight flitting in from the window at the end of the hall shed light on 144’s thermometer. It was 42 degrees in the hall.

David struck the door again with his knuckles and simultaneously a heavy burst of coughing was heard from behind it. He took an involuntary step backwards as someone rasped out a rude acknowledgment from an incognito position.

“Who’s there?”

David and Lucille exchanged surprised glances. The voice wasn’t that of the person they were looking for. It was too deep and harsh.

“Identify yourself!”

David started to stutter a greeting too late. A strange clicking sound accompanied their opponent’s last warning:

“I swear to God, if you’re trying to rob me I’ve got a Bersa Thunder Nine with your name on it!”

Lucille didn’t want to know what a Bersa Thunder Nine was. Panicked, she spoke up.

“My name is Lucille, and this is my husband David! We were looking for someone who was supposed to be here, but I don’t believe he’s here anymore! We’re sorry to have disturbed you –”

She broke off with a gasp. The door had abruptly swung open just enough to reveal the owner of the voice. Astonished brown eyes flicked between Lucille and David under a shock of equally brown hair. David’s own wide eyes traveled from the young man’s thin face down his arm, where a spidery hand gripped a black and silver handgun. Bersa Thunder Nine stared evilly at him through her short barrel. The youth stopped gaping at them long enough to choke out two words.

“Mom – Dad –”