Post 12

Nobody was in the bathroom. Peter went into a stall and sat down on the edge of the toilet seat. The tissue he grabbed from his brother’s room was bright red, so he dropped it into the toilet and unrolled some toilet paper to replace it. He couldn’t shake the images that played over and over again in his head. Holding the tissue to his nose, he closed his eyes and tried to think of where he may have seen something like that before. He thought of movies, television shows, newspapers and even the documentaries his teachers made him watch in history class. But he couldn’t place it. His vision was much more than a two-dimensional thing, though. It was vivid, real, as though he had lived through the experience himself and was remembering it the same way he was remembering the baseball game that started it all off.

What really got to him was the perspective of it all. He was the shooter as things played out. Of that he had no question. The sights of the rifle were lined up to his eye, not to someone else’s. He was the one to pull the trigger. He was the one to snap out of it with his arms in the position of someone holding a rifle, which is not something he has ever done in his life. In the vision, the rifle was comfortable to him, natural, even trained...like a soldier. Was he destined to be a soldier? He shook his head at the thought.

His nose stopped bleeding after a few more minutes, so he stood up and exited the stall. He looked at his face in the mirror and saw traces of red around his nostril, so he washed up. He made sure to swish some water around in his mouth, just in case.

A policeman that Peter didn’t recognize walked in while Peter was drying his hands. They made brief eye contact. Peter said, “hey.” The policeman nodded politely, saying “hi” before heading towards one of the urinals. It made Peter uncomfortable, and he wasn’t exactly sure why. Was it because of his vision? Could he possibly be feeling guilt over having shot someone, even if it was a contrivance of his brain? Whatever the reason, he studied his hands closely as he dried them, threw away the paper towels and left the bathroom quickly – so quickly in fact that he started walking in the wrong direction down the hospital corridor. Realizing his mistake, he turned around and saw Laura standing outside the lounge watching him. He could feel the blush spread across his face when he realized he had been seen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, feigning anger before smiling brightly.

“You didn’t see that,” Peter answered. “I was just coming to find you. Mom said something about food?” He was feeling a lot better since the incident in Dan’s room. He thought to himself that it might be related to Laura smiling at him.

“I’ve got your food right here,” she said seductively, holding the bag in front of her and shaking her hips back and forth. Peter grinned and walked to her. Together they went back into the lounge and ate. It was fast food, but it was pretty good. It really hit the spot for Peter.

While they ate, Peter told Laura about Dan’s condition, how it looked like he was run over by a car rather than just assaulted by someone. Then he started to raise the subject of his vision. “Have you seen many war movies?” he asked.

“War movies? Like what?”

“I guess just war movies, but not the old World War II ones. I’m talking about what’s going on now in Iraq.”

“The only things I see about that are on CNN and stuff. I don’t think I’ve seen any movies about it,” she said.

“Well, I’m asking because...” Peter hesitated to say that he had a vision. He doesn’t want to sound like one of those psychics you see on late-night TV trying to get you to call their 1-900 number. “I don’t know. I was starting to get a headache, y’know, blurry vision and everything.” Laura nodded as Peter continued. “I tried to do that visualization thing where you put yourself somewhere happy, so I was standing on the pitcher’s mound. Well, all of a sudden, I’m standing in the desert with a rifle in my hands, and I see a guy running a little ways away from me. He’s not looking at me or anything. He’s totally defenseless, but I raise my rifle, squeeze the trigger and blow a hole in his head.”

“Oh, my God. Why did you go there? That’s not your happy place, is it?”

“No!” Peter was worried that she would think he was some kind of criminal. “It’s almost like the vision saw an opportunity and took over to show me something. I can’t imagine what, though. Is this something that happens in the future? Is this something that I do? I can’t imagine me ever killing someone.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true, Peter. I mean, that’s kindof exactly what you did, isn’t it?”

“I guess you’re right. But you know what I mean. I’ve never hurt anyone, at least not on purpose. But if I was going to have a vision of me hurting someone and it came out of me standing on the pitcher’s mound, I would have replayed that time I beaned Tommy Fincher with a fastball. He must’ve bled for a good five minutes from that. Oh, and speaking of which, I got another nosebleed.”

“When?”

“Right after the vision happened.”

“Wait, another nosebleed? When was the first one?”

“Hm... the first time was not long after the Squirrel Incident.”

“Do you think that could be related? Maybe you need to see a doctor. Maybe it’s rabies.”

“It’s not rabies,” Peter said confidently. “But I’ve never really had a problem with nosebleeds before. This is something new, and you may be right. They might be related to each other.”

“So you’re not going to see a doctor?”

“Not yet, anyway,” said Peter.

“Have you seen any other auras since the guy at the airport?”

“No, none of those, either.”

They finished up their lunch, and Peter threw the trash away. They walked to the nurse’s station and got permission to visit with Dan. Heather and the policeman that Peter saw in the bathroom were both in with him, but when Peter and Laura arrived, they said their goodbyes and left, leaving them as the only two visitors. Dan was awake, but the nurse just gave him something for pain, so he was starting to feel a little groggy.

“You’re not going to go shouting at the toilet again, are you?” asked Dan.

“No, I’m feeling a lot better now. I don’t even know what that was about. Anyway, we were going to get going. We just wanted to come in and say goodbye before we left,” said Peter.

“Hey, before you go,” said Dan woozily, “could you do me a favor?”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Go into the closet there and grab my keys. I left my car at the station. Could you drive it over to mom and dad’s for me?”

“Sure. Anything else you need done?”

“No.” Dan thought ahead for a moment, then, “Wait, yeah. You have a cell phone now?”

“Yeah.” Peter looked at Laura.

“Isn’t it about time for him to join us in the 21st century?” asked Laura, smiling.

Dan smiled. “Yes, it is. So leave me your cell number and I’ll give you a call when I’m done here. If you don’t mind giving me a ride home, that is?”

“No problem, man.” Peter got the keys from the locker. While he was looking for them, he noticed the notebook that Dan wrote in while he was on duty. He grabbed that, too, and brought both over to the chair. He put the keys in his pocket and sat down with the notebook, grabbing a pen from the bed tray. Peter noticed that he could faintly make out some of the indentations on the paper from whatever was written on the previous page, so he flipped to the next page and wrote down his name and cell phone number. He tore off both pages and glanced at Dan, who now had his eyes closed. He was almost asleep, so Peter placed the paper with his number on the bed tray and motioned to Laura to head towards the door. With the top page that he tore off now behind his back, he said to Dan, “See you later. Feel better.”

Dan opened his eyes slightly and waved with the hand that wasn’t in a cast. Peter and Laura walked out of the room and made their way to the nurse’s station. When they got there, Peter looked for a pencil and used the edge of the lead to make words appear on the piece of paper. It said:

Days
Fed/6
noise

They walked to the elevator, went out to Laura’s car and got in. Laura started the car. Peter looked at the clock in the dashboard: 3:47 PM.

“What do you want to do, Pete?” asked Laura.

“I’m really not sure. I guess the first thing is to pick up Dan’s car and take it home, but after that, I don’t know.”

“What about the piece of paper?”

“I’m guessing that was the call that Dan was following when he got beat up,” answered Peter.

“Did you want to check it out?”

Peter looked at the scribbles. “Looks like Federal and 6th Avenue. That’s a little ways up I-25 from the police station. I guess we could drop off his car and come back to it, but I have no idea what we’d find, or even what we’d be looking for.”

“Well, it is something to do, right? Would you rather go home so your mom can fuss over graduation like my mom would?”

“You have a very good point there,” Peter said. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Laura drove them east on Hampden and north on University, heading to the police station just north of I-25 where Dan’s car was. Close to the DU campus, Peter suddenly points to the road ahead and calls out, “Look out!” Laura hits the brake and slowed down, but doesn’t see what Peter is talking about.

“What did you see?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I think it was a cat running across the road.”

“I didn’t see anything. Where is it now?”

Peter looked around but couldn’t see the cat. It was running from left to right across the street when he saw it, but looking on the side of the road, there was no sign of it as they rolled slowly past. “I guess we’re all clear now.”

They drove the rest of the way to the police station, which was only about a mile further up the road. Peter got out of Laura’s car and went over to Dan’s Firebird. He started it up, tossed a couple fast food bags into the back seat, and put it into gear. He pulled out in front of Laura and began to lead her back to his house.

Along the way, they were driving on a road with two lanes in each direction and a center turning lane. Traffic was pretty light for this time of day. Laura got into the far right lane and pulled up next to Peter. At first he didn’t notice, so she honked her horn at him. He looked over and swerved at the same time, coming within about a foot of hitting her car before she hit her brakes. “Okay,” he said aloud to himself, “you’re not too good at this driving thing yet.” He slowed down by taking his foot off the accelerator, and Laura caught up to him somewhat tentatively. When they were even with each other again, he looked over at her and she blew him a kiss. He returned it. When he looked at the road ahead again, the light just ahead was turning red. He opted to hit the brakes while Laura went through it. He sat there waiting for the light to turn green again, as Laura’s car disappeared in the distance. He drove the rest of the way back to his house, wondering if she might be waiting for him somewhere. It was kindof silly since they both knew where they were going, so there’s no reason why she would have needed to wait for him.

He pulled up to the street by his house and parked the Firebird right behind Laura’s car. She was leaning casually against her car, as though she had been waiting there for a long time waiting for him to show up. He got out and walked towards her.

“What took you so long, slowpoke?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, something about obeying the traffic laws?”

“Your brother’s a cop and you’re driving his car. You’d probably just get a warning anyway,” she countered.

“I’d still rather not take the chance. Mowing lawns only pays so much.”

Peter ran Dan’s keys into the house and told his mom that he wasn’t going to be back for a little while. She asked if he was interested in having Laura over for dinner, but he wasn’t sure they would be back in time for that. “Just eat without us. I’ll be back in a little while.”

He left and trotted back to Laura’s car. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat, waiting for him. He walked up to the passenger window, which was down. “What are you doing?”

“I think you need a little more practice driving that I do.”

“Are you sure? I mean, does your insurance cover me as a driver?”

“Probably not, but let’s not tell anyone.” She winked at him. He leaned down and kissed her through the window before walking around to the other side and getting in. Once again, he went through his mental checklist, setting the mirrors, the seat, the steering wheel, and was reaching for the ignition when Laura grabbed his hand. It startled him enough to make him jump, which made Laura laugh out loud at him. Indignantly, he said, “What?”

“The car’s already running, Pete. Let’s not pull a ‘Good Morning, Vietnam’ here.”

Peter laughed at himself. He was, indeed, about to try to start a running car. He put the car in gear and they were on their way back to the intersection of 6th Avenue and Federal.

They got there, and it was immediately apparent what the note meant. There was a Days Inn there, which matched the first line of the note. The last line, “noise,” must have referred to Dan responding to a noise complaint. They both immediately saw the police cars, one marked and one unmarked. The coroner’s car was there, too, just backing in.

Peter parked the car in a space at the end of the building, and they both got out. He took her hand and they began to walk towards the room where the police were to see what he could see. The area directly outside the room was blocked off by the coroner’s vehicle, but the door opened and they were able to look in and see blood – a lot of it. It was everywhere on the far side of the room by the mirror. Peter stopped in his tracks. A body was wheeled out of the room and into the coroner’s vehicle, and the door to the room was closed. Peter could’ve sworn he heard someone say “...Dan was attacked...” So this is where that happened.

“Peter, let’s keep moving,” said Laura as the investigators outside the room were looking in their direction. They started walking towards the office.

“I thought I heard someone say something about this being where Dan got attacked,” Peter said.

“Then he’s very lucky to be alive, I guess. Whoever is under that sheet wasn’t so lucky. That was a lot of blood in there.”

“I know.”

They walked into the manager’s office. “What happened down there?” asked Peter.

“I not allowed to talk about that, sir,” replied the woman behind the counter. Peter picked up a Hispanic accent, even though the woman did not look Hispanic.

Peter decided to press a little more. “Is that where the police officer got beat up?”

The woman behind the counter looked uncomfortable. “Jes,” she said finally. “But I can no give you any more information.”

They left the office and walked back to their car. The coroner’s vehicle had left, and the room was closed, so they couldn’t see anything more. The sidewalk by the room was clear, though, so they were actually closer now than they were when they walked into the office. As they approached, Peter saw something on the sidewalk next to the door. At first, he thought it was a trick of the light. The sun was setting over the mountains, throwing shadows everywhere. But when the dark spot shimmered, Peter stopped right away.

“What is it?” asked Laura, stopping next to him.

“Okay, science time,” said Peter. Laura looked at him, confused. “What do you see by the door over there? On the sidewalk, I mean.”

Laura looked ahead, not sure what Peter was asking. “I see two hotel room doors, side by side, that open onto a concrete sidewalk. Next to the sidewalk is the parking lot. There’s a pillar going up that holds up the second floor walkway.” She scanned the scene again and added, “There’s a light fixture outside each door, and a pretty big window next to each light. How did I do, Professor?”

“Do you see anything strange about the sidewalk itself? Some trick of the light maybe, or shadows that move or anything?”

Laura looked again, closely, at the sidewalk. After a moment, she took three quick steps and walked directly to where Peter saw the moving shadow on the ground. When Laura approached, the shadow moved away from her and towards Peter. It only moved about four feet before settling again. Peter was surprised and called out to Laura, “Don’t move!” She turned to look at him, and saw that he was staring at the sidewalk between them.

“Peter, you’re freaking me out again. Do you want to tell me what you’re looking at?”

Peter pointed to the sidewalk. “There, on the sidewalk. I see something.”

“Okay, so let’s turn this around. I’ll be the Professor. Describe what you see,” said Laura.

“Right there, on the ground, about three feet in front of you, right in the middle of the sidewalk, I see a dark spot. It’s really subtle. The only reason I see it so clearly now is that I watched it move there from where you are standing. I can’t tell if it has any depth to it, but it’s about six inches in diameter.”

“Do you think I chased it away?” asked Laura.

“Actually, yes. It didn’t move until you just about stepped on it.”

“That’s just weird. Are we talking ‘new life form’ here, Pete?”

Peter looked at Laura, and she looked back, eyes wide. “We may be, but why can I see it when you can’t?”

“Hey, you’re the one getting the nosebleeds and the blurry vision and stuff, not me. I say it’s your fault.”

Peter considered the options. He could have Laura approach, and maybe chase the shadow further. But what would that accomplish? He could approach it himself. What would happen if he got close? Would it run away? Would it allow him to touch it? He didn’t like the last option: leaving it alone. Who knows where it would end up if it runs away from people? People walk through here all the time, and apparently, Peter is the only one who actually sees anything here. For that matter, it could just be a hallucination.

He made up his mind. He approached it slowly, knelt on one knee, and placed his hand on the ground about a foot away from what he saw. “It’s about a foot from my hand. Are you sure you don’t see anything there?”

“I don’t see anything there, Peter. Should I go behind you and look from the other angle in case it’s just the light?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Peter answered.

Laura walked into the parking lot and began to walk around him, aiming to get behind him without getting any closer to the spot in front of Peter. She took a few steps when Peter gave a startled cry. He was looking at his hand now.

“It’s gotten into me!” Peter said loudly.

Without even thinking about what could happen if she touches him, Laura moved to his side and helped him up. “Let’s go. We don’t want the police to think we’re involved with anything here,” she whispered to him as she led him away. He was still looking at his hand in fascination.