"Knock. Knock."
"Hey, buddy. You haven't paid the bill for the last two days. Open up, before I am forced to call the police." A male voice yells out over the angry pounding of my migraine.
I get my butt out of bed and amble across the room to the door. Only realizing too late that I am naked, I open the door and the twenty something punk kid looks down at my junk and laughs. Wanting to smack that smile off of his face, I inhale deeply through my nose and hold it in for 10 seconds. After I calm down, I answer him.
"Hold on a minute and I will get your money. Come on in and have a seat. If you take a pic, it will last longer." I remark snydly before I go to grab my wallet. The whole time I am bending over to grab my jeans, I can just imagine he is making faces at me.
Yes, I am naked. But really people. I want to wrap my fingers around his scrawny little neck and choke t
"Hey Mr., are you O.K.?" I turn around and a little boy of about 5 with bib overalls on, stands in front of me and stares. Focusing on him, I answer calmly and smile. "Yes. I am. Thank you for asking." Trying to decipher exactly where I am, I scan the area for any landmarks but all I come up with is a townhall and what looks to be the post office. As of the moment, all I know is that I am in a very small town and it looks like there are mountains all around us. Perhaps even a national park by the way hikers are walking down the street. I can tell they are hikers, because they all have those seemingly standard hiking boots and backpacks. Not to mention, they are carrying their phones around and taking pictures in front of the old time townhall. Wondering how on earth I got here, I try to jog my memory but fail hopelessly. Chucking this up to another one of the soul eater's games, I wait for th
"Honk." "Watch where you are going." An older man in his fifties peers out the window at me and yells. Eventually finding where I misplaced my Jeep, I drive as far away from the town as possible before I have to stop out of sheer lack of sleep. With my eyes closing, I stop along side of the road and nap for a few hours before continuing. Once I am on the road again, I see the state line for Arizona and then come across a small town named Bisbee. Glad that I filled up on gas before getting there, I find that the little gas station in town is closed for the night and even if I wanted to, I couldn't get any till 8 a.m. Sitting at the station, I try to figure out where to sleep that is not in the Jeep. Finally deciding to investigate further, I walk along the deserted streets and come across a vacancy sign infront of what looks like an old western style saloon. It seems to even be complete with an u
"Crunch, crunch." Waking up, I hear that jarring noise and stand up carefully so I don't hurt myself. I realize that I am still stuck in here and it is so dark that it is blacker than on a snowy night in winter. The first thought that runs through my mind, is that she has blinded me and I am helpless in here. Wishing there was some way to know one way or another, I listen as I try my best to stay silent and not draw the unwanted attention of any predators. Hoping to figure out what is making that sound, I keep listening. While I do, I notice that my hands are cold to the touch, so I place one over the other in an attempt to warm them. Feeling something strange and slimy on the back of my hand, I instinctively flinch and wait for anything to happen. Whatever it is, it doesn't move. I try to calm myself down and wait for either the being making the sound above or the thing on my hand to do something. When
"Hisssss." I hear that familiar sound once again and then see her red hair flash before me, just before an older man with an eye patch notices me sitting in the bar. When she disappears through the open door like a ghost, I stand up to go after her but he walks over to me and whispers in my ear, "Come with me for a minute, I have something to show you." Curious and hoping that it has something to do with the soul eater, I decide to follow him to the back and watch as he turns around. It's written all over his face. He knows who I am, now I have to leave before I even get a chance to meet the little senorita who has had the last contact with her. "Slam" I watch as he slams the door behind me and then stares at me coldly. With wide eyes, he exclaims, "You are the man they want for murder in several states! I saw it on the news. I'm going to collect on that reward before anyone else realizes who you are."
As I drive along in the middle of the night feeling tired and sore from sitting in the car, I take a sip of cold coffee and try to stay awake. It really doesn't help, but knowing that I have to put distance between the murder spree that she has pinned on me and everything else, I push myself to keep going. If I don't she will win when they catch me. Shaking my head, I start to see things. Things that I know aren't really there or are they? Of course it doesn't help that the non existence influx of vehicles traveling in the opposite direction kind of weirds me out. Normally at six in the morning folks are traveling to work by now, I would have thought. While following the main highway I cross the line into Colorado and then I see it. A small child is walking alone along the opposite side of the road or at least I think it is a child. In the darkness I can barely see him, but from what I can see, I notice that he isn't ev
"Scratch" "Scritch, scratch" I wake up to this sound reverberating around the room. What is that? Finally opening my eyes, I look straight up at the ceiling at first, then I focus on the wall. Slowly scanning as my eyes move down the wall, they catch something moving in the corner. It’s quite dark in the room with barely any moonlight, so I must squint to see. Watching silently, I notice when it moves again. As my eyes focus on it, it grows clearer, and I see exactly what it is. That small boy from the roadside, he is crouching in the corner of my room glaring at me with black eyes. Is it her, or is there another one of them? This one doesn’t have blazing red hair though. Slowly getting out of bed, I put one foot on the cold floor and immediately it flies at me on all fours. Before I can get my other foot on the floor, it is on me like a voracious badger in the wild, except for
"Damn it, get out of my way woman." I hear someone down the street yell as I turn my head to look in that general direction. I have a meeting in ten minutes, and I am running late as usual. This time I almost caught her in the act, but someone intervened, and the cops were called. Before I could get to her, she was gone in the flicker of light and what was left was a man who had no idea what was going on. Honestly, I tried to help him but then I heard the sirens and ran, because we all know what that means when I am a wanted man. Hurrying to the restaurant where I am to meet Mr. Smith, I grab the nearest seat to the door in case I need to make a quick escape and wait for him to arrive. When we talked on the phone earlier this morning, he said that he is 6 foot and that with light blonde curly hair and dark brown eyes, I would know him when I saw him instantly. Well, he was right, because I turn to see an older gentlem
Driving along through all the cotton fields, I finally see brush country. As the vibrant colors fade and I start to see running water everywhere, I feel comforted because when I was growing up, I often spent most of my time fishing in the creek behind my grandpa’s house. I can already tell that I like this place. It feels like home. Wishing that I could take some time and just enjoy the area, I know full well that there is a man hunt on for me and my single goal in life before I die is to get ahold of her scrawny neck and sever it from her body. At least then I know that no one else will be afflicted by the devastation and sorrow she leaves behind her. Several times already, I have been almost caught and each time I saw a hint of her red hair. It often keeps me up at night wondering how she is always one step ahead of me no matter how hard I try. But then I realize that she must decide who she is going to attack before I can