VICIOUS CYCLE
I extended my arms upward in a languid stretch and yawned loudly. My security guard uniform pulled tight across my shoulders. It was as worn out as I was. Especially since I had to cover another twelve-hour shift directly coming from my second job at Home Depot. It was destined to be a long night.
I had no idea it would be the longest one of my life.
The bank of television screens mounted on the wall showed nine differing camera angles of a mostly empty parking lot. The room lights were dimmed and smoke from my partner’s cigarette drifted high toward the ceiling. I snapped a glance at the clock. 8:28 PM. Parkerson Mills Mall was closing in almost a half hour. There were only a few shoppers left to roam about.
“Tom,” I called out over my shoulder. “I’m going across the hall real quick to hit the john, then I’ll do a patrol on the southside, okay?”
I got only a grunt back in response. Tom Dawson was not the talkative type. He was, however, a heavyset man with a salt-and-pepper receding hairline. A set of luggage-sized bags under his eyes that matched his second and third chin. His eyes remained glued to the monitor in front of him. It was his job to watch the alarm program for all the door badge readers.
Swiping up a long flashlight resting on the desk, I walked out.
Our office was tucked away in an obscure corridor of the mall’s eastern wing, an almost forgotten nook. The air was stale, musty from dirty mop water, and humid as the AC was kept on high to save money. Only steps away, a glass door marked the bathroom entrances.
I pushed past the glass door and stepped to the right into the men’s bathroom. After I did my business, I rinsed my hands and splashed a healthy amount of water onto my face. I studied the rough stubble on my unshaven cheeks. Then I smoothed down a dark blonde duck tail sticking out over my white collar. With disdain, I noted my own small bags forming under my blue eyes.
“Gettin’ uglier and older every day, my man,” I muttered to myself.
The stall door behind me swung open with a clatter as a tall, white man stepped out. He was dressed in an expensive black suit and a white button-down shirt with a flat blue tie.
“Aging’s a heartless bitch, ain’t she?” he said with a glint of dark humor in his sharp, gray eyes.
I laughed but had been startled by the man’s sudden appearance. “Yes. Yes.” I replied.
I bent down again to splash my face one more time with water when I sensed rather than felt the man sidestep behind me.
“What—”
Thick, clear plastic swept down over my face, even awkwardly, pinning some of my left hand’s fingers to my chin. The plastic stretched tight across my mouth and nose. I immediately could not breathe!
I gasped, choked, and gagged in reflex, caught in the guy’s vice-like embrace. I swung my right arm in wild arches trying to break free. At that same moment, my eyes locked on the fuzzy image of my attacker in the mirror above the row of sinks. The man’s features were unclear, but a large, toothy smile was spread out on his face. It was sharklike, almost crystal clear. A true predator’s grin!
I slapped then scratched at my face fighting to make holes to breathe through. My struggles faded fast as my vision tunneled away into a black murky inkiness.
As I collapsed on the greasy bathroom floor, I heard deep chuckles followed by a “That’s a good boy!”.
****
“…a good boy!”
I jumped awake, tilted back in a padded passenger seat. A car door opened outside next to me as an old woman climbed into her rusting, gold Ford Crown Victoria. “Good boy, Geoffie! Waitin’ on mama,” she called cheerfully to her small blonde chihuahua. It was bouncing up and down in the seat to greet her.
Another door opened on my left and I jumped again nearly out of my skin.
“Hey, dude, you should get one of these. They’re only half the cost today!” It was Chris Gatti, my best friend, now ongoing for nine years. He’s younger than me with cropped brown hair, dressed in a green hoodie and jeans. He plopped down, sipping on a large fountain drink.
In spite of being a few years younger, he possessed an old soul with a very generous nature. “I’m serious—” Chris said, then stopped when he saw the terrified expression on my face. “Whoa. What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t answer. My mind was still absorbing the traumatic attack moments before.
How? What just happened? Why am I here?
A tempest of questions stormed through my head.
Hot sunlight poured in through the windshield. I could see the skies were the bright, crystalline blue of summer. But that did not make any sense either. I was working the night shift.
“Did you have a nightmare or something?”
“I… uh, a nightmare?” I mumbled, completely at a loss for words. A nightmare, though, did strike me as a possible answer to the craziness of the assault. After all, why would anyone attack me? I hadn’t done anything to anyone, and no one had any beefs with me that I could recall. And I definitely didn’t recognize the strange man who jumped me at Parkerson’s.
“Yeah, you were snoozing like a baby when I pulled in for gas. I didn’t wanna wake you when I went in.”
I nodded. The confusion and odd sense of deja-vu unnerved me. “Yeah, probably just a bad dream.” But it didn’t feel like any dream. Nothing ever felt so real!
“Tell me, man. Musta been a doozy,” Chris asked as he started his Kia Soul.
“Don’t remember much. Hey, hold up. Do you mind if I do get a drink after all?” I asked, wanting to escape having to tell the story and relive the ambush.
“Sure thing.”
****
Inside the gas station store, the frigid air thoroughly chilled me. My clothes were damp from sweat and my exposed skin goosebumped. I pulled down the rolled-up sleeves of my Tampa Bay Buccaneers sweatshirt on my arms and headed for the back. The place was cramped with close rows and displays blocking the entrances. A young teenage couple walked past me holding hands, giggling, and lost in their own world of puppy love. Other than the short, Italian man at the register singing along to an old rock tune on the radio, it was quiet.
The lights were amazingly bright too. The glare made me squint. In fact, the multitude of items on the shelves were ablaze with neon lights and firework colors. I never got migraines, but I had heard that people suffering from them had similar, intense reactions to light. I shook my head, but it didn’t clear up my vision.
I kept my face pointed at my shoes and walked briskly to the soda fountains. My throat was actually sore from the strangulation! I remembered screaming and gasping for air…
I reached over for a large size foam cup stacked on the counter beside the fountain machines.
That was when the clear plastic dropped down over my face again, cutting off my air, and dimming the light.
“NO!!”
My words – my plea – came out muffled and muted. I wasted no time. I swung around with my arms spread wide and my fingers clawing the air. I wanted to get my hands on this bastard. Beat the man back, kick the man in revenge, and smash my attacker into the ground forever!
In my efforts, my arms knocked over a potato chip rack and my hands only sent a coffee pot to a shattering end upon the tiled floor.
The young teen girl squeaked in surprise at the register.
“What’s going on back there? You will pay for anything you’ve broken! I swear it to God!” the clerk exclaimed.
Thinking I might break the stranger’s hold, I coiled my legs and propelled backward. I was hoping to drive him into a counter or maybe one of the nearby freezers. Instead, we plowed into a glass donut enclosure. There was another tinkling explosion of broken glass as it fell next to where we continued to wrestle.
My sight again darkened as a chilling numbness spread over me.
Why is this happening? Who is he? What the fuck does he waaaa…
More deep chuckles followed me into the gloom.
****
“Yo! Are you next? Ya waiting on somethin’ or is the machine down, man?” Someone was upset behind me.
I blinked and wavered on my feet. The world shifted up then down.
As it settled, a pair of strong hands gripped my shoulders. “Hey man, you okay?”
Once more, I could not answer and looked into the face of an elderly black man that had come through a glass door marked CHANNEL BANK – ATM.
“What?” I asked numbly. He was still holding me upright.
“I asked if you were okay?” Concern creased his wrinkled features. His dark eyes imploring and studying my face.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
I shrugged free of the man and left the small ATM enclosure without another word. Outside it was cloudy and sprinkling. A heavily loaded Metro bus grunted then hissed as it progressed down Main Street. Its brakes whined angrily in protest as it slowed to make its turn down 5th Avenue. I shuffled toward an old park bench near the curb facing the street.
I plopped down, planted my face in my hands, and leaned over my grubby sneakers. It was too much. The pain, the terror, the icy sensation coming over me each time at the end. The trauma was overwhelming. I couldn’t stop myself and I sobbed helplessly in my palms.
Moments later, I finally gathered myself and straightened my shoulders, leaning back.
This is like some cheesy horror movie! Only I’m the only one that Michael or Freddie keeps going after.
Like in those movies, me and my friends saw in my teenage years, I realized I needed to find answers. Needed to research how and why this kept happening. Yet, those answers were most likely only found on the net. I wasn’t going to dare go home to my empty apartment, to my laptop. Hell, I never wanted to be alone anywhere again!
I remembered there were public laptops at the city center library. I waited on edge for the next bus which would come and get me close to downtown. The traffic and the few pedestrians on the sidewalk kept me company. I was deeply grateful for that.
****
The cursor kept blinking and waiting for my search keywords.
What do I look for? Do I try to find out who that man is? Do I see if anyone else has been attacked recently?
I stared at the laptop screen in frustration. Half a dozen other users were sitting at the bank of laptops and others walked among the bookshelves or browsed the magazine racks. Never felt so happy to see a crowd. I would have gladly hugged and embraced each person. Tears rimmed my eyes again and threatened to spill down. My emotions were all over the place. I realized just how desperate I was. I was near panic mode.
I fought my emotions and got down to business. I typed “Muggings+white+40s male+plastic bag”. My fingers trembled so badly that I clasped my hands together in my lap as I waited for the search results.
Several stories appeared but nothing that seemed related to what I was going through.
“C’mon! I know this guy’s done this before. He’s too quick, too practiced to be his first rodeo,” I said aloud.
Maybe I need to be broader and more general. “Strangulations+white male”
More articles but nothing specific enough to help.
“Self-defense tactics” I typed next.
A loud siren, shrieking overhead and down the hallway exits startled me so bad I yelped. Some laughter at my reaction was quickly drowned out by a PA announcement, “CAN EVERYONE ORDERLY EXIT THE BUILDING? THE FIRE ALARM IS REAL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
As everyone gathered their books, backpacks, and purses, the announcement was repeated.
I sighed but wasn’t too upset as I was getting nowhere fast on the internet. As I followed the nervous crowd marching along the hallway, I was trying to decide what would be my next move.
Where can I go to get answers? Where will there be a crowd? Who might understand what’s happening? Would a church or maybe a priest have some ideas?
Hands clasped my left arm and yanked me hard into an unlit meeting room as I started to pass by. I stumbled blindly over a chair and fell hard onto my stomach. My right wrist popped like a gunshot in the interior of the tiny room.
Through gritted teeth, I screamed as the stranger landed on top of my back, “WHY DO YOU KEEP ATTACKING ME? WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?” Tears burned my eyes and hot pain seared through my arm and broken wrist.
The man’s weight constricted my breathing and movements. Even over the continuous bleating of the fire alarm, I could hear the stranger’s deep chuckles.
“Why do you say I’m trying to kill you?” More mocking laughter followed. “That’s funny! I’m not trying. I AM KILLING YOU! And I’m going to kill you again and again!”
I stopped my struggles and froze in response to the words.
He then leaned in close to my left ear. “You see, Jason, you’ve made someone a very powerful enemy. Seen something or done something you weren’t supposed to, I don’t know. They don’t pay me to know. They pay me, paid me, a lot of money to wipe you out of existence. Every existence… Every lifetime… Every dimension…”
Plastic wrapped over my face again. I couldn’t fight it. I was paralyzed by his words. As my vision winked out, I grasped the meaning of those words. The assassin was snuffing me out one by one. I was witnessing and experiencing it every time.
My murder would be infinite.
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