He was only two blocks away from the church when Arthur noticed a pair of headlights behind him. Nothing too unusual, especially at this hour. But it was the first sign of life he’d seen in this strange neighborhood since he’d arrived. Paranoia wouldn’t help anyone though, so he shrugged it off. A few minutes later, he’d turned down a street, then another, and was now on a busier road that ran through the center of the town. The headlights were still behind him.
Arthur nervously tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he stopped at a red light. Based on the height of the lights, it looked like a van, or a truck, but it was too hard too tell at night. It stopped a lane over, a few car lengths behind some other stopped cars. Arthur kept on the gas pedal steady as the light went green, before turning down another street that led away from his apartment. A few moments later, headlights. At this point, it felt like all of Arthur’s fears and suspicion were beginning to manifest into reality. His concern about this job and the way things were going were being realized. The only question was who was following him. They’d clearly come from the church, but he didn’t remember seeing that car in the lot.
Arthur nervously tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, considering his options as he drove at a slow, steady pace. Going home was out of the question, because whoever these people were he didn’t want them knowing where he lived. He could try to speed off quickly, but he knew he wasn’t any sort of getaway driver and had just as much chance of wrecking his own car as actually losing the tail. He reached for his phone again and thought about calling the station, but the other part of him didn’t want the police to get involved in this at all. He swore under his breath. The problem with being dirty was that as soon as he tried to incriminate someone, he would be on the police’s radar too. Arthur slowed at a stop sign, taking his head in his hands and sighing. This was no time for introspection, but he was beginning to wonder how it had taken him this long to consider that maybe what he was doing was wrong. He knew he had the same thoughts when the Assistant had originally approached him, but those thoughts were easily brushed away when the money was presented. Now, almost a year later, way in over his head, being tailed in the middle of the night, Arthur wondered if something was wrong with him.
Arthur looked in the rear-view mirror again. The truck was still there, sitting a car’s length back. It hadn’t moved, or honked, or flashed its lights. They wanted Arthur to know they were there. He realized they weren’t trying to follow him, they were trying to intimidate him. More quickly than he was comfortable with, his regret turned into a misplaced sense of anger, stemming from pride. He was a detective. A cop. They sure as hell weren’t going to intimidate him. Arthur put his car into park, for the first time in a years checked if his handgun was in his underarm holster, and slung his door open.
There was the slightest moment of hesitation, then he opened the door and got out of the car abruptly. Arthur began walking directly towards the truck, it’s lights shining in his face in the dark night. He covered his eyes, taking short, sharp breaths as if to hype himself up, trying to make himself look bigger like this was some sort of animal showdown in the Sahara. He didn’t think about how he might look ridiculous, this disheveled middle aged man trying to be tough, but in the moment he didn’t care.
Finally, something changed, although Arthur’s relief quickly turned the other way and his fear only grew worse. The car, which Arthur could now see was a big, aggressive looking pick up truck, turned it’s engine off as he approached. Arthur swallowed. He got out of the street and kept heading towards it on the sidewalk. It was a Ram 3500, a big truck with a big engine and a bigger front bumper grill. That wasn’t a particularly uncommon sight, and in most cases Arthur knew that truck owners were country boys or insecure people trying to compensate for something or other. He had a really bad feeling that whoever was in this particular truck was neither of those things.
As he approached the passenger door on the sidewalk, the window rolled down, and Arthur was unfortunately right. These people didn’t need to show off. He swallowed involuntarily again, doing his best to keep his hands straight and at their sides without acting jittery. Inside the car were two people. One was a massive man driving the car, with tattoos all over his arms and neck. His hair was short cut. He looked like some sort of stereotypical club bouncer. He almost looked like some sort of power-lifter. Heavyset, but almost all of it was thick muscle. The person next to him looked more of the same. This person had a lot of tattoos as well, some on their face, and a lot of cheap jewelry on their fingers. Their hair was also cut short, in a buzz. Like the driver, the passenger was heavy set, but seriously muscled. It was only at this point Arthur realized the passenger was a woman. It almost made him laugh, if he wasn’t afraid he was about to get the shit kicked out of him. The two of them reminded Arthur of himself and Dot, if they weren’t cops but instead a Swedish death metal band. Arthur felt like laughing in her face wasn’t the best idea.
The driver didn’t speak. He didn’t even turn his gaze, just kept staring straight ahead. Maybe waiting for someone else to get out of Arthur’s car. Arthur kind of wished he had back up right now too. Instead, the woman spoke in a gruff tone, clearly a local who spent too much time at the gym and too much money on PEDs. “Problem officer?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Arthur froze for half a second, the nonchalant, casual, almost cliche line throwing him. Then, like he’d done a hundred times before, he turned on the cop persona. Even if he felt scared, putting on a face helped, no matter how tough, or how insane the person in front of him looked. It always seemed more effective on people who didn’t look this tough or insane. “Why are you following me?” Arthur asked bluntly.
The woman made a mock face of confusion, elbowing the big guy next to her. “Shit, we were following this guy?”
He didn’t respond. She just shrugged at Arthur. “I dunno. I don’t think we were following you,” she asserted.
Arthur narrowed his eyes, having to look up a few inches at the woman in the truck. “If you know I’m a cop, then you also must know that tailing a cop can get you into some serious trouble.”
She stared him down, “Like I said,” she said flatly, “Didn’t seem like we were tailing. Don’t matter what you are, can’t arrest us for not doing shit.”
Her attitude was causing him to get angry. These kinds of people who thought they were above the law, thought they could do whatever the hell they wanted, pissed Arthur off. The irony of that, considering his own situation, did not surface in this particular moment.
Arthur scoffed, “You also know I could make up an excuse search you. I bet I’d find some stuff in there you’re not supposed to have. Could make this night real long. So, last time I’m asking, why are you following me?” Before he’d said it, Arthur felt like it would be a gut punch. A knockout line, it’d drive them off running. He just had to remind them who was in charge here. But based off what happened next, Arthur felt like it was not in fact the right thing to say.
The woman’s expression changed completely. It went from a stoic, smug sort of look into a dour, nasty expression that sent a shiver down Arthur’s spine. He had a gun, but she was twice his size. He knew in that moment he’d made a mistake trying to hardball the two, especially because for the first time now the man in the drivers seat had finally looked over, and was glowering at Arthur. A car passed the other way down the street and as it’s headlights shone into the truck for a brief moment, Arthur saw a faint orange glint in both of their eyes. The same glint that he’d seen a few times in the Assistant’s eyes. He involuntarily took a step back, like he’d just seen the face of a big cat in the jungle waiting to pounce. But, he didn’t get far, because the woman spoke.
And when she spoke, Arthur’s body froze. Her voice was a totally different pitch and tenor than what it had been before. It still had the same inflection, but was deeper, and sharper. All Arthur could hear in that one moment was her voice, like all the other sounds in the world, including his own breathing and heartbeat were drowned out, and the only thing that remained was her. He felt like he was in a vacuum, totally helpless to move, or act, or even speak back. His eyes were locked on her, and he knew he had a stupid look of fear on his face, but Arthur didn’t care. Whatever she was doing to him was…unnatural, and he couldn’t do anything about it. This wasn’t a flight or fight response, or some sort of anxious panic attack, it was something else altogether.
“You aren’t doing to do a damn thing, little man,” she said, in that sharp, nasty, low tone. “In fact, you’re gonna walk the fuck away unless you want something real bad to happen, got me?
As the world drowned out and Arthur’s vision tunneled only on her face, even that seemed to change. She was already big and ugly, but her face transformed to snarling, nasty, with sharp teeth like an animal, dark eyes. It was like she was transforming before his very eyes. And in this moment, Arthur could feel his flight or fight response come alive in his brain, screaming at him to do something, do anything. Arthur felt like he was going to piss himself, if he hadn’t already, but he still couldn’t move, like his entire body was locked down, awaiting some command from something other than his own brain. It was a terrifying, horrible feeling.
Then the command finally came. From her. “Now get the fuck out of here,” she snarled, leaning back into the truck.
Arthur couldn’t even swallow. His body turned without his permission, and he staggered away from the truck, not even towards his own car, like someone had him on strings like a marionette. Every muscle in his body was acting without his permission, and he could feel himself cramping up trying to fight whatever was happening to him. As he stumbled away, the truck’s engine roared back to life and peeled off around his own car, still sitting at the stop sign. A few moments later Arthur gasped and he was given back control of his own body, almost falling over in the process. He’d never felt a sensation like this before, his muscles were screaming at him for trying to force them to do two different things at once, and his head was swimming in two different directions. He almost felt like he was going to pass out, so he took slow, deep breaths and a few moments later his body seemed to relax and begin listening to him again.
The truck was out of sight as Arthur staggered back to his car. The feeling of whatever had just happened was terrifying, and he needed some kind of safety as he fell into the front seat and locked the door behind him. He realized he was sweating heavily at this point. It took him a minute or two to fully regain his composure, pushing his car back into gear and driving away while trying to keep his eyes on the road. He double checked to make sure he wasn’t dying, or he wasn’t about to have an aneurysm, but it seemed like whatever had been seizing him was gone now. As Arthur drove off into the night, all he knew was that whatever just happened he never wanted to experience again. And that, as he’d guess, they weren’t trying to follow him, just trying to intimidate him. It had worked.
