Chapter 24

“WELL WELL WELL, WHAT A BIG FUCKING COINCIDENCE THIS IS!”

We all turned in the direction of the voice and saw that same asshole that would just never go away. We knew who he was unfortunately and by the look of disgust on Ashley’s face when she turned and saw him she knew who he was too. This fucking guy just happens to show up? Really? That must be the theme this week, everything you hate shall come in bulk.

“My three most hated motherfuckers all gathered in one place, what are the odds?” he said.

“It’s no surprise someone else hates Ashley,” I caught myself saying out loud.

“I call myself asking her out in front of her friends and the bitch flat out embarrassed me, treated me like trash and laughed in my face!”

“Because you’re trash!” Ashley jumped in. “Prime example right here of a piece of shit man, a fucking waste of a body. Why don’t you go drown in a bathtub.”

“Come on man, can we do this another day, we’re not in the mood for any shit today,” I said.

“Well I say you are, let’s all sit down and talk a while.”

“Look you fucking creep, we’re not in the mood so go fuck off somewhere else!” Rita said.

He grins at Rita and walks toward her. “You have a mouth on you, where’s it been all this time? If you’d been a little nicer to me I would’ve put it to good use,” he grinned.

That last comment pissed me off. “We don’t have time for your bullshit man just get the...”

“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR! YOU’RE ON MY TIME NOW, AND YOU’RE GONNA DO EXACTLY WHAT I FUCKING SAY!”

Ashley huffed and crossed her arms. “Hmmph, typical loser.”

He turned and glared a hole right through Ashley. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me, typical fucking loser. Nobody wants you so you have to force your way onto them, you’re the lowest kind of man out there. It’s kind of pathetic really.”

He started getting red in the face. She’d really pushed his buttons saying stuff that kinda resembled her a little bit, but it had a bigger effect on him. “I’d watch it bitch.”

Ashley decided to press her luck and walked up to him, right in his face. “Or what? You’re gonna keep getting all red in the face? Please. You aren’t gonna do anything, you’re nothing but a little boy acting like a man. I don’t know why I even waste my breath on you.”

Ashley turns to leave and he grabs her arm before she gets too far. “Don’t walk away from me!”

With lightning quickness she spins around with the other arm and slaps him clean across his face, the sound echoing over the few cars driving by as he staggered back and cupped his face with his hand. “DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING TOUCH ME!” Ashley yelled.

As if his face wasn’t red enough, now he had a handprint on the left side of his face. That definitely pushed him over the edge. He grabbed her arm again (this time her right one) with more force and yanked her back in front of him. “Bitch, you’re gonna pay for that.”

She goes to hit him again but freezes when he lifts up his shirt and pulls out a knife. Both Rita and I are locked on him in horror as he puts the knife against Ashley’s chest.

“You scream, and I’ll stab you right fucking now.”

The scene escalated in a matter of minutes from just arguing to all of our lives being in danger thanks to Ashley. Her constant need to belittle someone finally came back to bite her in the ass, and in the worst possible way.

“Yeah bitch, you wanna get quiet now that your precious life is in danger.”

Rita locked her arm in mine and was standing halfway behind me. I could feel her shaking she was so scared. Ashley on the other was an entire different definition of scared. She was absolutely horrified, to the point where it looked like she was gonna cry. I myself was definitely scared, I mean he had a knife, and he was crazy, but I told Rita I would risk my life for her without hesitation, so my protective instinct overrode my fear of the knife, that and him pulling a knife around Rita got me a little pissed, so my adrenaline started to flow.

“Really man? Why would you bring a knife out here, we’re at an ice cream shop! There’s cars driving past us right now!” I said.

“Yeah, but there’s only one problem, it’s the fucking suburbs. Noone in this fucking town stays out late unless they’re working, and even then they’re just worried about going home, not kids fighting at a fucking ice cream shop! Not a single car is slowing down, or even acknowledging I have a knife. The people in the ice cream shop aren’t even doing anything, they can’t even see it. For all they know, we’re just having a really heated argument,” he replied.

Unfortunately he was right. He had Ashley’s body blocking the knife from the front and his was blocking it from the back, noone would even know he had a gun, not unless he stabbed her...

“Now that I have your attention, what should I do?” he asked noone in particular.

“You could let us go, look at them, they’re scared to death man!” I said.

“Good! Finally they fucking know the world doesn’t revolve around them! She gets all bent outta shape because I grabbed her ass, and you wanna be big

fucking hero boyfriend and cause problems, and this bitch right here deserves everything she fucking gets, fucking president of the feminists of America, I don’t

even wanna get into the things she did to me, or I’ve seen her do,” he said as he yanked on her arm.

“That’s what this is about? You’re mad because she, like any other person, doesn’t wanna be groped in public by someone they don’t know, and I’m bad for defending her? I don’t know what Ashley did to you, and knowing her it was definitely bad, but come on man, stabbing her doesn’t even the score.”

Ashley was absolutely terrified. She wouldn’t take her eyes off the knife. She tried frantically to shake her arm free but he wouldn’t let up, and when he had enough of her struggling, he back handed her, hard, and she dropped to the ground, bleeding from the mouth. I don’t know what was worse, that I kind of enjoyed her getting hit after all the shit she put us through, or that noone, in cars, the ice cream shop, or passerbys, stopped when they saw her fall to the ground. I felt guilty for enjoying seeing her in pain for once, even though she deserved it.

“Come on man was that really necessary?” I found myself saying.

“And everybody wonders why I’m like this,” Ashley said holding on to her bleeding lip.

“You’re like this because you’re an evil spiteful bitch who’d walk over anybody to your way, yeah but that shit ends today, one way or another,” he said running the knife through her hair so she knew what he meant. “Now stand the fuck up!

Out of nowhere the most unexpected thing happened, I mean completely unexpected, Ashley started crying. That was something I never thought I’d see happen, ever. This wasn’t just a tear or two she forced out, she was really crying, tears were actually streaking down her face. I guess it finally clicked in her head that her life was really in danger.

“Please, let me go, please!” she pleaded in a breaking voice looking up at him from the ground.

“You see this? It takes someone holding a knife on her to finally show some fucking emotion, and even now she’s still selfish, she only asked for herself to be let go, not you two!”

She hung her head and turned it to the side out of everyone’s view when he called her out. Even though he had a point, I was willing to let it slide on account of the knife he had at her chest, she couldn’t think straight, hell I was surprised I was lasting this long. Rita gripped my arm tighter and I stood directly in front of her, determined to get her out of here unharmed.

“Can you blame her? You have a big fucking knife aimed at her threatening to stab her!” I said.

“Don’t fucking defend her! You probably hate her just as much as I do don’t you? DON’T YOU?”

I thought for a quick second, I had to choose my words carefully, if I said the wrong thing I could set him off, and I wouldn’t put Rita’s life in jeopardy like that. “I’m not gonna lie, after all the shit she put us through, practically ruining our lives, I hate her, I really fucking do.”

Ashley dropped her head and wiped her eyes, reality of what she’d done finally setting in I guess. “See! She’s a fucking problem that needs to be dealt with!”

“Even hating her though, I wouldn’t pull a knife on her, that makes me no better than her!”

He tightened his face to let me know he’d caught my hidden insult. “You wanna reword that?”

I decided to take a chance, but still kept Rita directly behind me just in case. “You’re just dropping to her level man, having to force someone’s hand to get what you want out of them.”

“You know what? I’ll give her one chance. I’ll ask one question, if she gets it right, I’ll leave, and everybody goes home, if she gets it wrong, well you can figure it out.”

“Ok man, that sounds fair, she answers one question we all leave,” I repeated.

He looked down at Ashley who in turn looked back at him with makeup running down her face from crying. He squatted right in front of her and looked her in the eyes. “What’s my name?”

Her face almost immediately went pale. She tried to search in her head for an answer, but it looked like she kept coming up blank.

“Come on ASHLEY, what’s my name?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, I never ... you never even...”

“Wrong answer! You see? Doesn’t even take the time to learn the guys names who she degrades. Selfish fucking bitch. I guess you’re coming with me tonight!”

Fuck. I didn’t even know his name. We never got that far, it was instant problems from the moment we met him. Ashley dropped her head again and tried again to pull from his grasp, but he wasn’t having it.

“Stop fucking struggling! I gave you a chance with the simplest question possible and you failed miserably! You’re all coming with me, we’re gonna take a little ride.”

I heard Rita suck in air in horror as she squeezed my arm. “And go where? To some back alley or abandoned building so you can stab us? No way man. Come on, just let us leave. These bullshit arguments and insults aren’t worth getting stabbed and going to jail over, we can work this out another day, look at them, they’re both scared to death man!” I said.

“Let you go? Yeah so you can go straight to the cops? I don’t fucking think so,” he replied.

“With what? We don’t know your name, we don’t know where you live, we don’t know your friends or family, there aren’t any cameras around here, we can’t describe you to the cops without you sounding like every other person in the city, we have nothing man, just let us go.”

“Do you think I’m fucking stupid! Nah, there’s only one way this is gonna play out...”

In a last effort Ashley used all the strength she had, and while he was distracted she yanked herself free from his grasp and pushed him away, and he stumbled into one of the tables nearly falling over, but caught himself with his free hand, and dropped his knife in the process.

“That’s it bitch!” he yelled as he turned his attention back to Ashley, who was pressed up against the enclosed gate she most likely forgot was there.

He picked up the knife and went to point it at her, and at that moment I could see my life flash before my eyes, and he wasn’t even looking at me, but Ashley was cringing against the fence waiting for the inevitable, so there was no doubt the same thing was going through her mind. I hated Ashley, I did, but pulling a knife on someone doesn’t even the odds, especially when they’re as defenseless as we were. I had to do something, and I had to do it now.

He picked the knife up and charged at Ashley, but before he got there I lunged myself at him and knocked him back a few steps, making him bump into a few more tables. He didn’t fall, he caught himself again and gave me a death stare, and I didn’t feel comfortable having them run while he still had control of the knife, too risky. I directed Ashley to get behind me, and she slowly walked over, still scared out of her mind, but grabbed on to my other arm for dear life.

“Randy...” Ashley said in a still shaky voice.

“Not now, we’re not out of this yet.” I responded.

“I wanna go home Randy, please let’s just go home,” Rita cried.

“He still has the knife, if we try to run he’ll definitely catch one of us, we have to get it from him first, then maybe SOMEBODY WILL CALL THE POLICE ON THIS GUY TRYING TO KILL US!” I yelled.

He threw the knife between both his hands. “Biggest mistake of your fucking life!”

He charged at me with the knife up and I moved forward to get away from the girls, he came down from top and I was able to block it, but he cut my arm in the attempt. I winced but still held on, trying to knock the knife out of his hand, without success. He had a free hand and used it to punch me in the nose, and when I stumbled back, he slashed across at my chest, cutting through my shirt and drawing blood again. Again it only hurt for a second I’m guessing because of the adrenaline, but I wasn’t trying to make that a habit.

“Call 911!” I yelled to noone in particular while I had a chance to say something.

Before I had a chance to do anything else he was on me again, trying to push the knife into my chest. I was scared to death as I held him off with both my hands, but he was getting closer to my chest and my arms were starting to give away, so I did the only thing I could, I headbutt the shit out of him, hurting myself in the process, but at least it hurt him just as much. While he was dazed I grabbed the hand with the knife in it and slammed it across the table until he dropped it, then I punched him as hard as I could in the face. Immediately after I hit him I tackled him into a table and some chairs, but that gave him the upper hand because we rolled off the table and hit the ground with me on the bottom. He had position on me, and took advantage of it by smashing me with fist after fist, trying to blacken my eye, bust my nose, break my jaw, crack some ribs, whatever he could do to inflict more pain he tried it.

“Stop it! Get off of him!” I head Rita yell.

“Shut up bitch, you’re next,” he said as he looked back down at me to continue hitting me.

Him talking like that to her made me incensed. Even though he was still hitting me, hard, I got this sudden wave of energy, this burst of adrenaline, like I was becoming super saiyan or something. I used my arms to block his next flurry of punches and slung him off to the side, and immediately started pounding his face into the ground like he did me.

“You bitch! You fucking bitch! Fuck you!” I screamed as I hit him with punch after punch, each one feeling stronger than the last, kinda like when John Hartigan was bashing in the yellow guy’s head at the end of Sin City.

I punched him until I couldn’t punch anymore, and when the adrenaline wore off, I felt extremely weak. I looked up from his bloody face to see Rita clutching her phone in her hand and Ashley huddled up next to her. I could finally see some other people after what seemed like forever, but they were a good distance away, us four were still the only ones in the area. I slowly got up and went looking for his knife, stumbling around as I did on account of the beating he gave me. Since my shirt was already ripped and cut up I took it off and used it to pick up the knife so I wouldn’t leave my fingerprints on it, thank all the million cop shows for that. I tried to stand back up but dropped down to a knee because I was so battered, I felt like Shepherd looked at the end of Mass Effect 3, and that’s not a good feeling. I staggered over to Rita and Ashley who were still frozen in the same place since all this started.

“Did you call the cops?” I asked Rita weakly.

“Yeah, they’re sending someone,” was all she said in a scared, but controlled voice.

“Good,” I replied holding my ribs.

I looked over at Ashley who was still shaking, and unable to make eye contact with me. She was trying hard to fight back saying something or fight back tears.

“I still hate you,” I said, not knowing if I was serious or not. “I could’ve gotten stabbed to death, luckily all he brought was a knife.”

“Hey fucker!” I heard him weakly yell from behind me.

I had forgotten for a second he was still there, biggest mistake I ever made. I turned around and watched as he reached into his waist and pulled out a gun.

“Always have a plan B.”

“No!” I screamed as I took my beaten body and slid over to Rita and Ashley. I pushed them both to the ground out of harms way, then I turned around to go after him and...

BANG! BANG!

...

I felt two jolts of extreme pain hit me in the chest and surge through my body, making me go limp, then hit the ground on my back, cracking my head on the ground in the process.

“Raaanddddddyyyyyyyy!!!!” was all I could hear as I stared up at the night sky while struggling to keep my eyes open.

Rita’s face suddenly came into view above me as she had this look of horror on her face as she looked back at me. Her face almost instantly welled up with tears as she started panicking, not knowing what to do next. I could hear a lot of rustling and a crowd of people around me, but it was like I was pinned to the ground, unable to move for the life of me.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god! SOMEBODY HELP ME! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME! The ambulance is coming Randy please stay awake!” Rita cried, tears falling down her face.

It was getting harder to breathe by the second, but the pain was intensifying, to the point where I could feel exactly where it was coming from, my left shoulder and around a foot under it. I tried to say something, but all I could do was try to catch my breath, me hitting my head on the ground didn’t help much either as I was borderline passing out.

“NO! Don’t you do this to me Randy! YOU LOOK AT ME, YOU FUCKING LOOK AT ME!” Rita yelled as she grabbed the sides of my head and made me look directly at her. “GIVE ME SOMETHING TO PUT UNDER HIS HEAD! YOU AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE YOU HEAR ME! YOU’RE NOT GONNA LEAVE ME BY MYSELF, I NEED YOU!”

Ashley popped into view and she took her hoodie or whatever from her and rolled it up and put it under my head. My vision was getting blurry, and my eyes were getting really heavy, I tried to fight it, but the more I did the faster it seemed to take me under. Even with all the pain and screaming, everything seemed to quiet down, to the point where everything around me was silent. I tried to focus on Rita, as blurry as she was, but I was overcome by my body, and try as I did, I kept fading, and fading, until finally, I went under.

...

“His eyes are open! His pulse is coming back! Let’s move people!” I heard someone say.

My eyes opened and focused just enough to see that I was inside an ambulance with a crew of maybe three people working on me to save my life. I could see Rita at the back of the truck watching helplessly, crying her eyes out. I tried to make a move, any kind of move, but my body felt heavy as a boulder, unable to even lift my arm. Every move the paramedics made, whether it was giving me a shot, putting pressure down on my shoulder, or moving my head, Rita never took her eyes off me.

“Give me the ... no not that one, the other one, hurry,” some guy said pointing at needles.

He gave me a shot of something, but by now I couldn’t feel anything, I was just there, in the truck, not knowing if they gave me something to help relax me or if I was slipping away. All seemed to be stagnant for a second, until I started to feel pain again, and it was coming fast, in waves. The blurriness in my eyes came back along with the shortness of breath, causing me to panic. They had the breathing mask over my mouth but I felt like it wasn’t working, like I would be able to breathe better without it, but I didn’t have the strength to lift either arm to take it off. Then out of nowhere a sharp pain shot through my entire body and seemed to loop over and over, and soon I’d lost what little control I had over my body.
“He’s going into shock! Hold him down! We have to move fast...”

“DO SOMETHING!” Rita screamed at the top of her lungs.

“He’s fading! Collins, get me the scahiuihjfhd fgtgvbt tvtrtvtvercr veverferf...”

I couldn’t fight it anymore. As much as I tried to stay conscious, my body wouldn’t let me. I shook and gasped for air for as long as I could, but the pain was too much to bear. Just like before, my eyes got real heavy, and my breathing shortened, and with my last bit of consciousness, I watched as everything around me, the emt’s, the inside of the truck, Rita, became a blurry mess, then slowly disappear as everything faded black until there was nothing. I’d lost consciousness again, and by the way I felt before I did, I didn’t think I’d wake back up.

...

I’d woken up, I was sure of it. My eyes were open and I was up and about, and I didn’t feel any pain, the only problem, was I didn’t feel like I was in my body. I felt smaller, like pre-puberty still in grade school playing with toy trucks smaller, but it was dark around me and it wasn’t like I could just look into a mirror. As I thought that everything started to light up around me, and when it did, I almost shit my pants, I woke up to find myself reliving a moment of my childhood, literally. I somehow had reverted back to when I was four when we went to the beach for the very first time. Being that was a big day for me, I remember everything fondly, and it all looked exactly the same as it was the day we were actually there, down to my tiny toon adventure swimming shorts.

“Randy come on! Let’s go play in the water!” Rita’s equally young self yelled back at me as she charged towards the water, making dad chase after her.

I remembered this moment exactly, it was one of the best days of my life, but why was I here? What meaning did this day have on the rest of my life? Was there something I didn’t know about? I had so many questions, but before I could answer any of them, the scenery around my changed, along with my body, and I was warped to another part of my childhood.

The first day of school. Again I remember it like it was yesterday. Rita and I were so terrified the other kids wouldn’t like us that we almost didn’t go, but we sucked it up and went in proud with our power ranger lunchboxes and had a great first day. Then once again once that memory was complete I was transported to another part of my childhood, mine and Rita’s thirteenth birthday. That day was special because it was right around the time puberty had kicked in for both of us as well as signaling we were becoming young adults, and mom and dad made plenty sure we were gonna enjoy the hell out of it, giving us every single thing we asked for that day, which wasn’t much, but they still did it. I would rank that in my top five for best days ever, behind the beach, and the first day of school, and ... before I could even finish that thought I was being transported again, and to my surprise it was right to the thought I was just having, the first time Rita and I made love. There I was lying on the bed with her again after we’d come back from our birthday dinner, just holding her and feeling her soft skin against mine. That was the day I knew I’d found the love of my life, and I would do everything in my power to make her happy. But then, something different happened, not like how I’d been transitioning before. Just as quick as the last memory came, it was gone, faded out into darkness like a horror movie right after someone just died a gruesome death. I started to teleport again, in pitch black this time, and where I ended up was anything but a happy memory for me.

I’d gone back to when we went trick or treating when we were five. It was the first time we’d ever gone, and was almost the last. Mom and dad took us to this haunted house on accident, I say that because it looked normal on the outside, but the set up was you had to go through the house to the back yard to get candy, us being kids we didn’t care we just wanted the candy so in we went, big mistake. Once the door closed the lights went off and all manner of werewolves, ghosts, boogeymen and anything else that could scare a child came out of nowhere, scaring us half to death and making us run out of the house without candy. I was shaking and Rita was crying, and we vowed never to go trick or treating again, until Aunt Lisa changed our minds. That was not a good day.

I transported from that to the day when Rita had to go stay with our grandparents for a month when we were nine, it was the first time we were ever apart, and for such a long period of time we were both seriously upset. I don’t remember why she had to go and why I couldn’t go with her, but it was definitely one of the worst days of our life, I held her as she cried all the way up until it was time for her to go. I left that memory and was taken to another, but this time there was a sharp pain in my chest as I was being transported to it, it didn’t hurt too bad but it was strong enough for me to notice. I arrived at the time we tried horse lessons, it was our first and last time. The horse Rita was on went crazy and threw her head first into a tree, knocking her unconscious and causing me to hate horses forever. She got away with a concussion, but it could’ve been much worse, it was safe to say we weren’t getting on another horse again.

I quick flashed to the day we met Ashley, and by now the pain I was now feeling has doubled. I flashed back to that day many times in my head wondering what I could do differently so that we never met each other. Even on that day she was a complete bitch, luring Rita away from me with stuff that was “for girls only” according to her, then laugh behind my back and taunt me whenever Rita wasn’t looking. That was the day that started Rita hanging out with girls, and since it was new to her, I wasn’t gonna be an asshole and interfere, as much as I wanted to, but it was important to her, so it was important to me, I just wished it had been another girl instead of Ashley. I didn’t wanna live through any more memories, good or bad, the Ashley one just pissed me off extremely, knowing she was the reason for all of this, but you know how it goes when you want something, the exact opposite always happens, and this time was no different.

It went dark again, but the pain from before was gone, I don’t know why, it was just gone. This time felt different, not because of the pain, but something was just, different. Instead of flashing to another memory like usual, this time I felt like I was floating off the ground, hovering in place almost as if I was levitating, and then the lights came back up. If I already wasn’t unconscious, I’m sure I would’ve been now just from the shock of what I was seeing. I was in my body, but I wasn’t in my body, and I was looking at myself as I lay on the street after being shot. I was reliving my now worst memory, the time I’d gotten shot and ended up paralyzed, ended up in a coma, ended up dead, I don’t know, but I was not hoping for any of them, let alone the last one. Unlike the other flashbacks, this one seemed to be stuck on repeat, from the moment the guy pulled out the gun, to me hitting the ground and Rita screaming, this moment played over and over until I knew exactly what was gonna happen at what time. It’s said that your life flashes before your eyes before you die, and mine did just that, with the good memories and the bad. I didn’t think I’d go this soon, but apparently life had different plans for me, and there was nothing I could do about it. My only regret, is leaving Rita the way I did, with us fighting and not being able to make up, all thanks to Ashley. I knew one day she would be the death of me, I just didn’t think it would be literally. I sat down, realizing there was nothing I could do, and waited, waited for the scene in front of me to stop playing over and over, waiting for everything to go dark around me again, waiting to die.

I wasn’t sitting there long before something started to happen. The scene of me getting shot over and over started to spin around like water does in a toilet, and all the light gathered in one spot. I stood back up, not knowing what I was looking at, but was intrigued all the same. The light started to compact itself into a smaller form, but it was getting so bright I almost couldn’t look at it, so I covered my eyes. It sped up the spinning, and the brightness went down enough for me to look at it, only to see the light forming I the shape of a person. I stood there, in sort of awe, as the light materialized in front of me, coming to a big flash of light, temporarily blinding me, and went I looked back at it, I couldn’t believe my eyes, there looking back at me in the form of light, was myself, right down to the detail.

“W-wh-who are you?” I finally managed to get out.

“I am you, your conscience, I am everything you are,” he said back in my voice with an echo.

“How am I talking to you?”

“Certain circumstances allows for this meeting to be possible, on account of your actions.”

“I can talk to my conscience while I’m unconscious?”

“Sort of, it’s very complex.”

“All those memories, why did you show them to me?”