Chapter three:
Timothy had found me and was chasing me through the darkness with his hands trying to grasp me from every corner. I was terrified beyond words, and I tried to scream, but the only thing I heard was a baby crying. “I’m going to make you pay for this little girl. You and that little bastard are never going to get out of here alive.” I felt the hairs on the back my neck standing on end. I needed to find a way out. There were no doors or windows, and it felt like it was a never ending corridor. “You can’t get away from me. It’s just a matter of time, before I hold that scrawny little neck in between both of my hands.”
I couldn’t see him, but I knew that he was there and that his intention was to shut me up permanently. I stumbled and fell, holding my hands out to prevent myself from falling on the child that was now growing inside my body.
“Lori, you had to know that this was going to end badly for you. Did you really think that you could escape my clutches? The car has a GPS unit, and I was able to track it down. It wasn’t all that hard to figure out that you took the bus. I handed a few crisp $100 bills to the driver, and he was more than willing to sing like a bird. Coming here is going to be your last stand. I thought that you were going to be a challenge. I guess what my mother said about you was right after all. You don’t have the kind of education that you need to keep one step ahead of me. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you need street smarts to survive and you don’t have those either. You barely are able to take care of yourself.” I felt his fingers scratching against my clothing.
I shrugged my shoulders to wrench free of his grasp, but I started to move in slow motion. Large black shadows converged on where I was standing and then very thin fingers reached out. I felt it at my collar and then I was swiftly turned, so that I could face him.
“You shouldn’t have run. I had to track you down like some kind of animal to put you out of your misery.” I slapped at the hands he’d wrapped around my throat . I could feel the air squeezing out of me. I tried to breathe through my nose, but he was cutting off my air supply. That vise like grip had me at his mercy. “That’s it… close your eyes and it will be all over soon.” I stared at him with my eyes bugging out of my skull. I tried to scratch at his hands, but he laughed like he didn’t even feel it.
He lifted me into the air and my feet were dangling like I didn’t weigh a damn thing. It felt like I was in some kind of noose hanging from the ceiling and swinging in the gallows. The only thing that I could do was wait for the inevitable end, with the feeling of falling into a deep hole. I suddenly got my second wind, and I had to thank the child for making me remember what was important. I thrashed like a fish out of water, hoping that I could grab onto any part of his anatomy and give him something to think about.
“I don’t know who you are, but coming into my room was the worst mistake of your life.” His voice changed and my eyes fluttered open to see a strange man choking me. “I don’t like trespassers. You come in here and you try to steal from me. How can you expect me to turn the other cheek?” I was trying to say something, but my words were strangled and were barely coherent.
I was still thrashing, and I suddenly came in contact with his more prominent region. My toes struck out with a vengeance. I saw the look in his eyes change from contempt to that of pain in a matter of seconds. He still held me, but his grip had lessened slightly. It was enough that I was able to pry his thumbs away from my throat. I twisted them hard and he finally let go. He doubled over, before falling backward onto the bed.
I landed on the soft green carpeting and my legs gave out until I was sitting on the floor. We were both breathing heavy but for entirely different reasons. “I knew that you… wouldn’t remember. I helped you… back to your room after you got drunk and disorderly. I thought that I was… doing you a favor, but I should’ve known that no good deed goes unpunished.” He was grunting like a wild animal and holding onto his privates.
“I do seem to recall something, but it’s all spotty and disjointed. I think I remember you helping me into bed.” He looked toward the sheets that were in disarray. He pointed to me and then pointed at himself. He wanted to know if we were intimate with each other. “This can’t be happening… not again… not after all this time has gone by.” He began to pace back and forth, not deviating from his course and leaving me to catch my breath.
I held onto my throat, feeling where his fingers had dug in and it brought to mind the nightmare that I had woken up from. The sunlight streaming through the yellow 1970s curtains had announced that a new day had arrived. I told him last night that he should sleep it off, and that he might have a better perspective in the morning. I was hoping to have that same thing happen to me, but I was still out of my mind with worry that Timothy was going to find me. I tried to convince myself that it was time to shut up and do something about it, but my mind and my body were now struggling to see who was going to come out on top.
I looked towards the bed, and I saw the stains on the sheets. I could only imagine what they were from. I had lain on top of the bed beside him, staring at the ceiling until finally sleep overtook me. There was no way that I could possibly find a restful slumber, but at least I did close my eyes. Unfortunately, it left me wide open for any kind of attack, which of course came from Ian’s delusional state that somebody was out to get him.
“I think that it might be a good idea that I leave you alone. You don’t need me to hang around, especially now that you’re back on your feet. You may not be 100%, but I get this feeling like this isn’t the first time that you’ve gone down this road.” I turned towards the door, and I had my hand on the handle when he gripped my wrist and turned me around.
“It’s been four years… four years and I ruined it with one stupid mistake. I don’t even know how I can look myself in the mirror. I feel so ashamed that I allowed my past to haunt me into doing something that I haven’t done in four years.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but it appeared to be something that was hurting him inside. “Do you know how hard I worked for those four years? I walked away from a profession that kept me from finding my purpose. I was good at what I did, but I didn’t feel good about it. To kill somebody and to see their eyes is like I am taking a part of their soul.” He was talking in riddles. I didn’t have time for this, but I was going to make the time.
“I don’t understand, and what does four years have to do with you being some sort of assassin?” I probably shouldn’t have said that. He pushed me back onto the bed, where I lay there with him looking at me like I was some foreign entity to be squashed underneath his shoe “Look, I’m not one to judge and what you do is between you and god. I don’t want to get into the middle of any of this.” I felt like I wasn’t the only one that was running from something. I saw a piece of paper on the night stand. I hadn’t seen it in the dark, but it was flapping from the breeze that was now coming from the half open window.
“Four years of sobriety flushed down the drain with one drink. I thought that I was through castrating myself for something that I did in the past.” He was looking towards that piece of paper. I picked it up and read the contents to myself. It was a subpoena to appear before a judicial committee against the very commander that had put him through hell in the first place. They wanted his firsthand recollections about how he was forced into killing and torturing those that they needed information from. It didn’t go into vivid detail, but I could see that this had something to do with human rights.
“I think I understand the reason why you fell off the wagon. You thought that this was behind you, but now you have to dig up the past. It says here that you were supposed to stand in front of the committee yesterday. It also threatens legal action against you if you don’t show up. I’m taking it from the way that you drank yourself into a stupor that you found some other way to occupy your time.” I didn’t even know why I cared, but something compelled me to stick around to see how this was going to play out.
“I don’t want to relive those days all over again. I don’t have it in me anymore. I’ve cried my last tear over those faces that have haunted my dreams. I’ve learned to live with their condemnation, and the way that they look at me like I am the cause for their family’s dismay. They judge me, and that liquor that I put into my body is my way of executing myself.” I listened and didn’t say anything, because it was not my place to make him feel worse.
“Lori… Lori… Lori.” I hadn’t told him my name and the sound was not coming from his mouth. I was stunned into silence, as I realized that Timothy had indeed tracked me down.