Paul Jones - Towards Yesterday

Somewhere in the back of her mind, pushed there by some primeval survival instinct, she watched herself as if from afar. She saw her body from above and watched as it twisted—slowly, ever so slowly—and began to lean forward. Come on. Run , her mind screamed. For God’s sake, run . She placed first one foot and then the other in front of it. Her heartbeat maddeningly slow in her ears, its sound drawn out to a long, low, beat.

T hrummmmmp ! One step away.

From the safety of her mind’s vantage point, somewhere near the ceiling of the bathroom, she saw the man begin to move too. She watched as he used the sink unit to launch himself after her, his massive arms propelling him in a fluid movement away from the sink. She screamed down at herself to run faster . Move faster .

T hrummmmmp! Another step.

The door. She had to make it out into the corridor. If he caught her in here, she was doomed. Security would be too concerned with fighting the fire raging in the transmission room and dealing with the victims. No one would think to look in here for her, and no one would hear her screams over the wailing of the fire alarm.

T hrummmmmp! Her mind screamed, keep on moving .

With a startling suddenness, she was back in her body. Seeing through her own eyes. Feeling the rhythmic Thump! Thump! Thump! of her heart pounding in her breast. Sucking in air through gritted teeth, she felt the dampness of perspiration underneath her arms and across her face as she accelerated toward the exit. Her senses heightened now to the point that she could feel the hairs on the back her neck tingling as the hot breath of her pursuer, so close behind her, spilled over her.

Concentrate on the door. Get to the door .

She was almost there. Her hand reached out, she was going to steam right through it and out into the corridor to safety.

She felt the punch just as her hand touched the aluminum fingerplate of the bathroom’s swing door. It was like a hammer blow between her shoulder blades, knocking her forward. Her feet tangled and she felt herself tipping over. No! No! No! her mind screamed, but it was too late. Her forward momentum was already carrying her toward the door and the floor at the same time. Instinctively, she drew her hand to her chest, trying to regain her balance and check her fall but instead allowing her head to strike the door with such force her vision doubled and her teeth snapped painfully together. She tasted blood, bitter and metallic in her mouth.

Rebecca hit the floor on her back.

Her head still ringing from the impact, she realized she was laying half-in and half-out of the bathroom. Looking up, she saw the killer’s huge body coming for her, a look of supreme triumph tattooed across his face.

Twisting her body away from him, Rebecca flipped onto her tummy and began a frantic hand-over-hand scramble out into the corridor in a last desperate attempt to flee. But the polished tiles just made her hand squeak as her sweaty skin slid uselessly over its frictionless surface.

The floor suddenly flew away from her and she felt herself lifted bodily by the scruff of her clothing into the air, dragged away from the rapidly receding safety of the corridor and back into the bathroom.

“I get to kill you twice,” Byron Portia whispered to her. “How cool is that?”

Rebecca clawed helplessly at the air and, when finally she was able to draw sufficient oxygen into her lungs, she knew it was already too late. Her scream of terror was cut short as the door swung closed behind her.

“You know, I recognized you as soon as I saw you. It’s just so amazing!”

Byron Portia, until recently Tony Gallagher, shook his head in amusement at the irony. “What do you think the chances are? A billion to one? A trillion? Or maybe it was not chance at all? Hmmm? Bet you haven’t given that any thought at all have you? No, of course you haven’t, you have other things on your mind right now don’t you, sweetie?” His hand tightened around Rebecca’s throat, squeezing off more air so only a rasping gurgle escaped from between her lips.

He reached out to the sink counter with his free hand and picked up the straight razor, exposing the wet blade with a flick of his wrist. Becky’s eyes widened and her body stiffened as he ran its cold edge lightly along her throat.

“Want to see something interesting?” he asked her. “Sure you do. Sure you do.” He closed the blade into the handle and deftly inverted the razor with his thick fingers. A silver stud near the end of the handle looked just like the other three that apparently kept the two pieces of black pearl together, but when Portia fingered it, a second blade snapped out from its hiding place. Five inches of glistening steel and, unlike the shaving blade, this was a double-sided dagger; flat and insanely sharp on both sides the glinting blade tapered down to a lethal point. It was small, but deadly enough if the user knew what they were doing, and Rebecca’s oxygen starved mind knew through terrible personal knowledge that this man had a lot of experience with it.

“Clever, eh? A gentleman can’t be too careful on the road you know. Lot of undesirables out there these days. A lot of undesirables. Not my instrument of choice, as I’m sure you realize, but needs-must-when-the Devil—drives, right?” He grinned at the choking woman, revealing his tombstone teeth, white against his tanned skin. “I think I would have raised a few eyebrows if I had tried to get my tool of choice past security. You remember that don’t you sweetie?” Rebecca’s struggling mind dragged the memories of her final moments from the crypt she kept them locked away in, deep within the basement of her brain; the memory of the untarnished blade of this man’s hunting knife played back and forth before her eyes before he… before— Rebecca’s eyes rolled back up into her sockets, her skin was beginning to take on a slight blue tinge as hypoxia took hold of her. Her earlier frantic attempts to beat the big man’s hand from her throat now became little more than autonomic twitches as her vision and cognition faded away from her.

Portia watched her suffering with fascinated attention, his head tipped slightly to his shoulder. With expert judgment he timed her slide toward death until, at the final moment before he sensed her escape into unconsciousness, he released his grip from around her throat.

Instinctively, Rebecca drew in a long labored gasp of air, her oxygen deprived muscles unable to hold her up, and she sank down the wall of the bathroom into a gasping puddle of folded limbs. Her eyes fluttered open as her chest heaved and strained to drag more of the precious air into her system. Vaguely aware she was still alive, she looked up into the face of the man who had killed her once already, and who was, she was sure, preparing to end her life once again.

“Oh boy,” he said, “are we having fun now, or what?”

A bead of blood trickled over Rebecca’s chin. She felt its warm stickiness as it flowed down the arc of her throat before being absorbed into the material of her torn blouse.

“I really wish I had the time to spend with you that I feel this situation deserves. Unfortunately, I have to get out of here. So, regrettably, I’m going to have to make this quick.”

Rebecca screamed as Portia grabbed a handful of her hair. He viciously snapped her head backward, exposing her neck, the she felt the sharp kiss of the blade as he placed it against her throat.

“What a shame I can’t spend more time with you.” He sounded truly upset.

The smell of smoke became abruptly stronger in her nostrils and she felt the pressure of the knife against her skin disappear as Portia suddenly released her from his grip.