Catharsis (Book 1) Read online

  He continues to walk towards me grinning with the phone held loosely in his hand. His stench crawls ahead of him across the pavement as he approaches.

  Looking down at my chest, I attempt to see the object of his obsession when I notice two things: one, it is virtually impossible to see one’s own necklace (kinda felt like an idiot on that point), and two, I still have the old guy's blood smeared all over my clothes. The blood gives me an idea, and I decide to change my tactics.

  I look up and catch his eyes when he is still about ten feet away, and I change my tone from "friendly kid" to "not-so-friendly bear".

  "Stop," I growl at him, and to my amazement he does. "Are you an idiot? Look at me. I'm smaller than you. I'm lighter than you. Except for the fact that I'm browner than you, you have me beat in virtually every "street fight" category they hold a legitimate contest in. Despite all of that I’m not scared or running away. Doesn’t that tell you something about me? You coming at me is just plain stupid. Plus," I continue, and I drop my voice an even deeper octave, "did you even notice I'm covered in blood? Did that even register with you?"

  I wait for a response from him, but all he gives me in return is mild blinking to back up his disturbing grin. This is what our instructor called "re-establishing the offensive".

  Just gotta keep pressing forward until he leaves, I tell myself. Solid plan, the scared little girl deep inside me echoes

  back. I hope it works.

  He counters my plan by reaching his right hand into his jeans pocket and pulling out a dark black, shiny object. I'm aware of his heartbeat speeding up (It's loud.), his breathing slowing down and his smell shifting more towards the soiled-summer-jock-strap spectrum of fetid odors. A slight shift of his thumb and a four-inch blade pops out of the object in his hand. Oh joy. A knife. I guess he just decided to make his own move for the offensive.

  "Puta," he hisses at me and waggles the knife tip back and forth in what I assume he believes is a menacing fashion (Are you kidding me? I’m sure this is the only Spanish he knows, and it happens to be an insult to women? Just my luck.), "why don't you just toss me the necklace and we'll call it a night?"

  I should be scared. I'm in a dark alley...well, actually now, I'm standing in the light of a buzzing street lamp (still so annoying), but I was in one moments ago...and I've seen my first dead body and I'm being threatened by an albino toothpick who's trying to mug me. But there’s no fear in me. I feel calm and slightly annoyed. And hungry (The last thought sneaks in and surprises me.).

  That new part of me – the small, unhappy-to-lose part - feels excited and eager for what’s about to come next.

  "That's not going to happen," I tell him simply. "Not tonight."

  He steps closer to me with the knife (The phone is off to the side. I'm not even sure he realizes it is still in his hand.), but he doesn't seem real excited to put it into use, yet. Maybe he's sca-

  With little warning and only a twitch of his body, he makes his move, but it isn't the vicious, speedy swipe I had been anticipating. It’s a slow wide slash towards my belly, and I simply step back as it gets near me (What was that? Is he teasing me? That couldn't have been a real attack?).

  "Was that for real?" I ask and involuntarily chuckle at him. It was like watching someone swing a canoe paddle underwater.

  He growls and lunges straight at me with the knife. At least I was expecting a lunge. All he gives me is another slow motion back step and a gentle pushing of the knife in the direction of my chest. I watch him come at me with his slow almost-gentle stab (Is he seriously just messing with me? Is this a joke?), and I step to the side and shrug as his hand continues to pass through the space I had been standing. I expect him to correct the motion and curve the blade towards me, but he doesn't. He pulls the knife back, shifts his body slightly and pushes the knife at my new position. I shrug again and return to my original spot. His knife passes harmlessly to the right, and he brings it back to his starting position.

  That was weird. I may be new to knife fights, but I imagined them being more like the movies and less like a ballet performed in mud. Did he really expect me to just stand there while he slowly pushed a knife into me? Has that worked for him before?

  "Really?" I ask him. "Are you playing some kind of game? Are you making fun of me? I don't get it. And if you’re just doing this because I’m a girl, don’t be insulting!"

  "How did you do that?" He blurts at me. And he genuinely looks shocked. Maybe even a little scared.

  "What do you mean? Do people normally just stand there and let you slowly puncture them? I'm sorry about that. I'm still new to this whole getting stabbed concept."

  As a response, he swings his left hand up at me in a slow arc (It’s like watching the Titanic pass an iceberg.) and lets go of his phone.

  He releases it with absolutely no momentum behind it, and I expect the phone to just fall out of his hand as gravity takes a mocking tear at it. To my astonishment the phone leaves his hand and begins to creep towards me like a Motorola-powered balloon. Is this guy super-powered or something? How'd he manage to defy Newton like that?

  I watch the gray and black object slowly rise towards my face before I simply reach up and pluck it out of the air. Once in my hand, it feels like a normal phone. Not inflatable. Nothing out of the ordinary. I make a mental note to ask him how he did that once all this is over.

  Returning my attention to my assailant (Does he even qualify as that anymore? Isn't an assailant supposed to at least be moderately threatening?), he manages to surprise me again. His right hand is slowly coming around in an arc towards my neck. The shiny knife blade pointed right at me.

  He had meant to distract me with the floaty-phone trick while he slowly jabbed me with the knife. Not a bad plan. It’s just about the only way his elderly-coma-patient-with-a-valium-IV-drip-speed stabs would ever be effective. Although I still can't see the point in fighting like this. It seems silly.

  I'm done with this, I think.

  Reaching out, I grab his right hand with my left making sure to wrap my fingers in a way that avoids the blade of the knife. He continues his forward pressure against my hand as if he plans to keep pushing the blade towards me. With some irritation, I give his hand a squeeze to let him know I'm serious. It’s a good hard squeeze as it's been a long night, and I'm tired (I don't really feel tired, but I should be. It’s probably just the adrenaline overcompensating.). As the muscles in my fist contract, I hear fireworks go off underneath my fingers.

  He screams loudly. It hurts my ears, and I immediately release his hand and step back. The knife clatters to the ground, and I notice his hand. It doesn't look right. The word "mangled" would be appropriate, but all the fingers are intact. Nothing happened to it aside from my squeezing, but the way the fingers just dangle there is disturbing.

  "What the hell, man?" he yells at me. "You crushed my hand. You crushed it." And he moans while he stumbles back towards the car.

  "What are you talking about?" I know I’ve been taking Krav classes, but I’m far from some kind of hand-crushing-super-ninja. And not to insult myself, but I’m also a hundred pound girl. "I just grabbed your hand when you did that weird slow-ballet-knife-push thing."

  "And how'd you move like that?" His stumble continues toward the car. His non-mangled hand reaching for the door handle. "Nobody can move like that. What are you?"

  I pause. "I'm Mexican."

  He opens the door, steps around it, looks back at me and introduces some words into our conversation that I'd rather not repeat, especially since none of them were all that creative.

  The door slams (Seriously! That really hurts my ears.), and I can hear the voices inside it for a moment before the car pulls away from the curb and tears down the street.

  Well, that was an interesting event. I’m not quite sure what all happened, but it was definitely interesting.

  Music erupts in the air startling me. Looking around for the source, I notice it’s coming from me. More specifically, from an
object in my hand I hadn’t even realized was still there.

  I have his phone. And it’s ringing.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Flipping the phone over, I check the caller ID. No name. Just a number, and not one I recognize. Of course if I had recognized the number that would have only added to the weirdness of the night.

  Clicking the red END button, I silence the annoying tune of the ringer. I need a few minutes to think. Sitting down with my back against the light pole and facing the darkened alley, I give myself a few moments of calm to collect my thoughts.

  But I can’t.

  I mean, I can sit down, but I can’t calm myself with the annoying buzz being generated by the light right above me. Now that I’m looking at it (Or near it, really. It’s too bright for a direct gaze.), I realize there’s too much annoying glare around for me to relax.

  After standing up and moving several yards back down into the alley, I find a relatively comfortable spot against a bare section of wall. I feel the need to stress the "relatively" part over the "comfortable" part here. I was still in an alley in a bad part of town, and I was sitting several dozen yards from a dead guy. Let's not forget that little nugget of joy.

  Looking deeper into the alley towards the old guy, I realize I can make out his form surprisingly well. The alley’s dark, but I can still see his ghostly visage staring up at the sky. That shouldn't be possible.

  I’m starting to get the impression there might be something wrong with me. Or it’s incredibly "right", depending on how one wanted to look at the situation. Essentially, I’m seeing in the dark. The old man is a quarter of a football field away, in a dark alley, on a dark night, partway behind a dumpster...and I can see him. I can see him clearly enough to recognize that his eyes are still open and staring at me. I shouldn't be able to do that. Nobody should be able to do that.

  I'll have to file that interesting tidbit away for further speculation. Priority number one is getting away from here and getting home. Safely.

  I have no desire to go to the police now. I'm not sure what's going on, but I am sure that whatever it is is over my head. Going to the police might be a solid idea later, but right now I don't want that.

  You can't just leave the old guy sitting in the alley, I tell myself. That doesn't seem right, either. If I am the one responsible for killing him (Still not positive on that one, but it’s not looking good for me. Especially in light of these other "developments".), then I really hope I had a good reason for it. Good reason or not, I can't just leave his body lying in an alley to be discovered by rats or garbage men or whoever else wanders the alleys in a city.

  Dropping my head into my hands to think, I DONK my head against the hard plastic body of the cellphone still clutched in my right fist. Already I’d forgotten about that little thing, again.

  And then it hits me like a, well, like a cell phone to the head. I can use the phone to call 911 and alert them to the guy's body. I certainly don't have to stick around for that. I can call them and then call a taxi and scoot on home.

  "But what if they trace the number when I call it in?" I ask out loud trying to think of possible screw-ups to this rather simple plan.

  "Not a problem. Not my phone. It won't trace back to me."

  "But it will trace back to the albino stick-boy."

  "So," I argue with myself. "That shouldn't affect me at all."

  "But he's seen you. He knows you were here. He can describe you to the police if they question him."

  "Good point."

  Pondering on that for a moment, I continue. "I don't think that will matter. All he can describe is a short, angry Mexican chick wearing some nice clothes with blood on them. If he even remembers that much. His smell was pretty off so something tells me he won't be cognizant of too many details (Why would that even register with me?). Plus, he'll probably put my age as somewhere in the low double digits. That will keep me safe by a few years."

  "But what about fingerprints on the phone?"

  "I'm going to wipe it down, and then I'll throw it in the canal on the way home. That should kill any trace of it."

  "If you call for a taxi to pick you up here, then the police can easily trace that back if they search for any connections to the old guy."

  "Another solid point. I hadn't thought about that. Well, I mean, I guess I had since I’m arguing with myself, but whatever... It's been a long night already. Let's wrap this up." I pause. "Where was I?"

  I pause and go back over my last few seconds of conversation in my head.

  "Oh yeah. The taxi. Well, I can solve that by not getting picked up here. I'll just run down a few blocks until I get tired, and then I'll call from there. I'll try to get far enough away that there won't be a connection. And I won't have the taxi drop me off near my neighborhood. That will keep me clean on both ends."

  "What about clothes?"

  "What about them?" I look down and notice the front of my blouse is covered in blood. Blood I'm pretty sure isn't mine. It won't do to run down streets in a gore-soaked outfit. That’s bound to attract attention regardless of which part of town I'm in.

  Unbuttoning my nice blouse (Sorry Nana about your expensive birthday gift.), I take it off. My green Save the Narwhals t-shirt only has a few blotches of blood on it, so I turn it inside out. Not a perfect disguise, but it certainly works better than the splatter-paint fashion show I was sporting before. I briefly consider ditching the shirt into a trashcan, and then I realize that is exactly what stupid criminals do before getting caught (I've watched my share of crime shows.).

  Stuffing the mobile phone into a pocket of my jeans (It's gone off twice. Same number both times, so I just put it on vibrate.), I step out into the baking yellowness of the accursed lamp to check for street signs.

  Noting the names of the cross streets two blocks away, I judge the distance to the alley so I can give directions to the police.

  As a last measure, I look around where I've been standing for any evidence of my stay. I notice the glint of the switchblade on the ground near the street lamp and consider picking it up. I haven't touched it yet, so I have no connection to it. No prints from me, and if I take it it will just become one more thing I have to worry about hiding or destroying. I leave it where it is and begin a slow jog north towards the outskirts of the city and my family’s house.

  After several minutes of jogging I stop and decide I've gone far enough to safely make the emergency call.

  The call is quick and one of the more painless experiences of the evening so far. Once that is done, I make the decision to continue moving towards home. I figure I can just keep running until I get tired. That should be a safe distance from the alley for a taxi to pick me up without it being connected to the crime scene.

  As I run I discover a problem with my plan: I don't get tired. Running for several more minutes and increasing my pace, I never even break a sweat. I don't even breathe hard. I’ve always been an athlete, but I'm not a natural runner. I'm too small for distance. I run for soccer and for the occasional Maga workout, but I am not known for endurance.

  But this night I can run, and I don’t feel anything holding me back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As an experiment, I increase my speed to see if that will trip an internal governor, but my body adjusts to it easily. Running has become no problem at all for me.

  It’s not a problem, except for the small issue of lights and passing vehicles. Those are still awful.

  I do my best to dodge the burning white halos of the streetlamps when I encounter them, and the empty streets facilitate this as I weave my way from one dark spot on the street to another. My leaps go further than expected which makes traversing the illuminated donuts thrown by the lamps even easier.

  Vehicular headlamps are not as simple. The few cars that I encounter on my trip are more difficult to evade as their light fills the entire street. Several times I duck into an empty side road or doorway as I hear one approaching, and then I just have to wait until they
pass. A few times I'm caught midblock with no easy retreat, and I have to stop and turn my back to the vehicle and shield my eyes to keep the piercing pain from crippling me.

  I'm sure I look suspicious to anyone who sees me. A short, dark-skinned girl in jeans and a t-shirt hiding her face whenever a car rumbles past? Nope. No reason for the police to suspect me of anything. Especially with a blood soaked blouse crammed into the back of my pants, and a stolen mobile phone in my front pocket.

  Remembering my previous plan to ditch it, I pause at the next alley and step in to pull out the phone. I had meant to pitch it in the canal earlier, but I had been distracted with running and spaced it . The same number has called five more times since I started my journey tonight. I consider smashing the phone into Lego-sized pieces and throwing it into the nearest sewer drain.

  I'm only a few blocks from my neighborhood now, and I'm running out of places to ditch it. I don't want to take it home and have to worry about hiding it, but smashing it feels arbitrary and mean. As long as I wipe the phone clean of prints, then there's nothing to tie it to me. I might as well return it to the owner and do a good deed (Even if he was directly involved in a misguided attempt to stab me.). It’s a small act that won’t cleanse my conscious of whatever happened tonight, but it might help me sleep later.

  After peeking out of the alley to check for the closest street names, I flip through the phone’s menus to find its text messaging function. I text the number that keeps calling and let them know the phone will be under a trashcan in the alley. I wipe the phone with my shirt multiple times (just to be safe) and scoot it under the red dumpster.

  With that problem solved, I move on to figuring out how to get into my room without my parents killing me. My dad will be waiting in the family room for me, and I'll have to confront him and try to explain things that I’m not sure I even understand yet. Not relishing that discussion, I decide to see if my newfound athleticism might prove more helpful in problem solving the issue.