pretended to wait, then placed the package on the doorstep and fought the urge to run back to the car. He drove away cheering. Now all he had to do was wait.
The news reported the next day that some horrible prankster had tried to scare Sir Peter Dewey - possibly over their political views - by placing a fake package in front of his house full of a mysterious white powder. Upon opening the package (Dewey presumed it was some sort of thank you from a constituent) he promptly dropped it when saw what might have been anthrax.
The police and the hazmat team arrived to find a sweating, shaking, gagging Peter Dewey, and what they suspected was a cardboard box full of self-raising flour. To be on the safe side, he was kept overnight at his private hospital of choice, where he would receive treatment for shock and kept under observation, as well as undergoing full blood works.
The elation at discovering the name DEWEY, PETER on the side of a healthy blood sample was almost too much to conceal for Nikloas. He explained his uncharacteristically flushed cheeks to his fellow pathologists as the tail end of his explosive diarrhoea, for which he took two weeks absence. He took two samples of Dewey - one was the pure vial of blood Scarlet had requested, the other he mixed with anti-coagulant and kept for himself as a memento of his triumph.
The police found no evidence linking the box or it's contents to any known individual, and the episode was put down to one of those things that seem to happen to politicians from time to time.
The money did not last as long as Nikolas would have hoped. He had to count out small change to pay for a cheerless macchiato when he returned to the fateful Carrie's Café. A month of euphoria over his success had led to an unconstrained spending spree, after which several notable names had been added to the collection.
Although his bank balance was firmly in the red once again, Nikolas found it hard to care, which he knew was a problem. As he took a seat in the cafe, his thoughts remained in the attic cabinet, with his beloved vials. He found it hard to concentrate on anything else these days. Only the previous day he received what he was assured was a sample of Simon Cowell's blood, for which he forked over £450 for - a veritable bargain, considering how hard it would have been to sneak away - but it wasn't quite the same as obtaining the sample with his bare hands. His thoughts drifted to Scarlet; her rouged cheeks, her red lips...
I wonder what her blood would look like, Nikolas thought.
Vincent Kenny enjoys Japanese food, mid 90s Peter Engel-produced teen programming, and writing pulp horror. He is currently writing a story about a talking cat.