Novel p. 13
Holden woke up the next day exhausted. He had been able to sleep given the extreme stress of the situation, and the effect of deep tiredness that had on him.
There was something wrong this morning. He realized it was still only five o’clock. And he noticed a banging on the door suddenly. It was loud but intermittent. It was possible he hadn’t missed any noises while he was waking up. But the person was aggressively, violently, trying to enter the building.
There was only one person who could be doing something so violent. Only one person who could want in right this second. There was no doubt… It was the Dead Bod Man.
Something occurred to him. He had fallen asleep almost accidentally. Where was his fiancé? She was not in trouble if the Dead Bod Man was here… but how had he been so self-involved as to not even check up on her? When he had promised to watch her all of the time? And there was something else. Something must have happened to her at the shoot. Because there had been no response from her. In the middle of mourning being raped, he hadn’t noticed, that he had not heard from her. And he wouldn’t, before he fell asleep, quickly and unexpectedly, from exhaustion.
She was going to be alright. It must have been him the Dead Bod Man was truly after. And he was here right now. He had to think what to do. He had fallen asleep in his change of clothes after showering. A pair of sweatpants, and a tee shirt. He knew what to do next. He sat up in his bed, and all of the pain in his butt suddenly became too intense for him. His weight on his butt almost made him lay back down, but he had to get up given there was no time. Grimacing, he pulled himself off the bed, and steadied himself on his two feet, the pain just slightly better now. He staggered to his closet and found a jacket. He put on shoes next. He had been wearing socks.
He was just a little better on his feet now. He walked over to the balcony, and just as his front door burst open, he was opening the sliding door, and starting to descend the stairs into the city streets.
Though as he was reaching the first level of the apartment building, he heard the killer step out onto the balcony roughly, and then start to bound down the stairs. It wasn’t going to be easy. He wasn’t going to let Holden away except with his dead bare hands.
It was a fight to the death, and the Dead Bod Man would just have to die from jumping off a building, or getting hit by a car, while trying to catch up to him. That is what Holden figured, as he reached the ground, and started off running as best as he could, for a bus parked two blocks away.
Once he crossed the street, he looked behind him and saw the Dead Bod Man was just reaching the ground, and would soon be after him.
One more intersection, and then he was there. He climbed the bus stairs, quickly raked four dollars out of his jacket pocket, and then walked to the back of the bus. He tried to cover up his limping as much as possible. As the bus door closed, the Dead Bod Man was just crossing the street, to where the bus was. As the bus began moving, the Dead Bod Man could be seen stopping on a pin point and running in the opposite direction. He was running as fast as he can, after the bus.
Holden turned around and watched horror as the Dead Bod Man chased and chased after him. This particular bus did not have so many stops. The next wasn’t for ten blocks. So it seemed he’d get away. After three, four blocks, he could hardly see the Dead Bod Man anymore.
The bus stopped, at the next stop, and the Dead Bod Man could not be seen. While new passengers boarded, Holden felt so anxious he could about scratch a wound in his leg. But it wasn’t too long before the bus doors closed, and the bus swiftly took motion again.
It was smooth another few blocks, but there was a particular jam at a stoplight. And the bus stalled.
Holden could feel it could even be a few minutes. He looked behind him. The Dead Bod Man could not be seen. The light turned green. But the bus didn’t move. Traffic was stalled. Holden waited, and waited, wanting desperately for the bus to start moving again. He looked behind him for the Dead Bod Man again. The bus inched forward. But it moved no more than that.
Holden kept his eyes peeled through the back window for the Dead Bod Man. So far there was still no sign of him. Surely he was running as fast as he could to catch up to it.
Then there he was, the Dead Bod Man. Conspicuously running after the bus as fast as he could. The Dead Bod Man was breathing hard.
