From Filth & Mud Read Online Free Page A

Cover your mouth,” he growled as he rabidly pawed at his face with his sweater sleeves. The guy kept walking, face buried in his hands.  He offered an apology that was interrupted by yet another sneeze.
    Must be a new neighbor , Miles thought as he tried to catch the guy’s face. Where’d he come from? He looked around trying to figure out which car the guy had just stepped out of.  The bastard would get his; nothing like slashing a couple of tires to even the score.
    “ Asshole! ” he yelled back over his shoulders at the now distant man.
    Miles wiped at the spray that had gotten into his left eye and rubbed at his cheek vigorously trying to scrape off several layers of skin. The best part of waking up so far this morning had definitely been his cup of coffee. He was still pawing at his face when he reached his car. He had a forty-five minute drive to work that was sure to be lengthened by the traffic on I-95 south, toward Boston. He shuffled angrily into his car, his toy, a Tesla S Roadster, the envy of all nerdom. Other guys might have their Beamers and Benzes, but he had this and hardly anyone had it. He named her ‘Tracy’. He knew how to turn her on. A wry smile crept onto the corner of his mouth.
    “Oh, baby, can I touch you here?” he said out loud as he caressed the ignition button with his index finger and imagined it was soft, pink flesh. The sudden throbbing at his temples brought him back from his fantasy. Damned migraines, he thought. He had to call Dr. Lakowski to change his meds again. He shouldn’t be getting any migraines. The meds he’d been on for the last few months were working pretty well. In fact, he couldn’t remember when he’d last had a bad migraine. Oh well, he thought, he’d call at lunch time. Now he just had to somehow make it to work in time to not piss off Karen, aka, ‘Madame Butterfly’, his endearing term for the young, super-genius, can-do-no-wrong, probably slept her way to cushy funding and her own lab, boss of his who was five years younger than he was. He was tired of working on her damned pet project. Thousands of hours had been wasted on some geometric design. Where did she get off blaming him for his algorithms not working? Well, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the damned project anymore since Karen had sent him the schematic of a new design that she said would work. He’d looked at it quickly and had run it through his backup system at home, since he hadn’t been to work in a few days, and it looked promising— whatever . Maybe now he could get back to his work.
    “Screw her and screw the sneezing guy, too!” Miles grumbled as he bolted up in his seat and angrily jabbed at the electric starter button. Or rather he thought he did. He tried again, but he couldn’t quite reach the button. He was having trouble extending his arm, which he now realized was numb. It was probably just the cold.
    Miles brought his hand up to his mouth to blow on it, which was the only way to battle these cold autumn mornings in New England, that is of course, if you didn’t wear gloves. He tried to blow. Nothing came out. His face was numb. He was dizzy. His head started throbbing. The throbbing grew stronger, too fast to be okay. He was in trouble. He grabbed at his chest pocket trying desperately to get to his phone. He couldn’t. Miles slumped suddenly in the Tesla’s bucket seat, dead.
    He’d be found by Tracy around 6 p.m. later that day on her way back from work. He’d soiled himself. She told the police that she’d found Mike―at least that’s what she thought his name was, or Mark―in his car by himself. “It was so sad how things like that can happen. You just never know,” she’d say. “So sad... ”
    The official cause of death would be noted as an ischemic stroke. He had otherwise been a healthy-ish, thirty-year-old Caucasian male, slight build, brown hair, and brown eyes. There wasn’t much else to write in the medical examiner’s report. Other