Nomad: A Story from The Reels

by Brian Ewing

  NOMAD: A STORY FROM THE REELS

  BRIAN B. EWING

  Copyright © 2021 Brian B. Ewing

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 9798589426489

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Jessie cupped her hands over her mouth and exhaled a warm breath to take the edge off of the chill she felt running through the dreary, Seattle night. She told herself the man she was following into the suburban one-story, would be her last customer for the evening. She was tired from the week and it had barely been Thursday. She watched the man in front of her as he reached in his pocket to get the keys out. He was physically fit, and Jessie said a small praise of relief to herself. She could end the night with a man that at least was attractive. The same could not be said for the previous two men she had been with earlier. The man right before she picked up her current client, smelled like beef jerky and resembled a wild boar. He snarled and wheezed as he shoved his hairy, fat body all over her. She had been willing to take on the man-troll, as she couldn’t imagine he would be able to go longer than a few minutes with her.

  About five minutes later, like clockwork, the rotund man with his patches of matted hair due to profuse sweating, had finished. Jessie took the eighty dollars off the dresser of his hotel room, got cleaned up, and left. Walking back into the cold night air, it smacked her in the face upon exiting the building. Jessie never wanted life to end up where it had, doing what she did. She doubted any young girl who went to twelve years of schooling would choose to end up selling her body. Some women loved sex, some hated it, but no woman wanted to feel like she was not in control of who and when she would do it. The oldest profession on the planet fell into her lap, as unexpectedly as when her dream of becoming a famous singer, got crushed.

  She had gone up the block in hope of finding a bar that could provide a shot to burn the stench of unhealthy, middle-aged depression out of her nasal passages. Two Shots, a popular bar on the strip she was working that night, looked relatively empty. Walking in, she noticed only a handful of tables and many open pockets at the bar. She sat at the end of the bar and ordered a double shot of Fireball and a Corona. It was at the opposite end, a man with sad eyes in his mid-forties sat with a cocktail and was lost deep in thought. She assessed his fingernails and teeth before deciding if she could deal with another stranger thrusting himself in her. After no blatant attribute to steer her away, she made her way to the open seat next to him and went to work.

  It only took a half-hour to convince the man to take her to his place, probably sooner if she didn’t take him up on a free drink. She could tell his type. She remembered being in high school with guys that looked like they would grow up to be like him. He was polite, proper, fit, he looked like he took his Daddy’s money and partied his way to a college degree in business. He explained that he was in town for work and was renting an Airbnb in the neighborhood on the opposite side of the freeway. It was no longer than a five-minute drive, the man assured her. He was about to go on a trip for a big event he attended every year.

  A five-minute drive, ten minutes of pumping away, five minutes to clean up, and I can be out the door and watching Jimmy Fallon by the time I get home, Jessie told herself.

  The man put his keys in the door and waved her to enter with his nicely shaped arms. She put on the front of Miss Innocent, smiling and thanking him as she entered. Jessie was always careful when on the job. She made sure she picked her marks in public places, felt them out, and always had her right hand on her switchblade in her denim jacket until she was ready for the exchange of services.

  “I charge eighty dollars. I assume you know what we are doing, right?” Jessie spoke as authoritative as she could muster, against the wall of masculine charm that was countering her at that moment.

  “Yes, I am not a fool. You seem very nice and I am happy to comply with your fee.” The man spoke softly.

  The man had a tone about him, not an accent as if he had been visiting from another country, but almost as if English had been his second language. It was the way he used his words, Jessie recognized. She had been an assistant to a speech therapist at a charter school right out of high school. She missed the days where people looked at her and assumed that she was a book nerd. Now, she couldn’t get anyone to look above her tits for the most part, as the crowd she surrounded herself with had no longer considered her a person, just a human glory hole. The thought dissipated as the man took out his wallet, setting multiple twenty-dollar bills on the island counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. The man took his nicely manicured fingers and pushed the bills towards her, then stepped away.

  “Would you like a drink before we get started?” The groomed man offered.

  Taking the bills and folding them into her purse, “No, thank you. I am just going to freshen up in the restroom if that’s alright?”

  A polished smile came across the man’s face as he gestured back to the hallway. The motion resembled the mouth of a shark. It made Jessie shiver.

  “Second door on the right.”

  “Thank you, I will be right back.”

  Jessie took her black crossbody bag with her into the restroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. The incandescent bulbs across the top of the mirror gave the entire room a yellow glow. Jessie walked up to the sink and turned on the faucet, staring at the shell of the person she had once been. She ran her hands under the cool flow. The sight of them under the water gave her a sweet memory of her mother yelling from the kitchen to wash her hands before dinner. She had been eight years old in that memory. Life was hopeful and bright at that age. The biggest dilemma she remembered having was what crayon to use while coloring. The warmth and security she felt each night in her bed as she went to sleep in her family home, caused a lump to form in her throat.

  She turned off the faucet and stared back at a woman she grew to despise over the years. The choices had been made and the bottom line was she needed to go earn her cash so she could survive awhile longer in her cruel existence. She touched up her lip gloss, pushed up her breasts to accentuate the cleavage, and told herself the same thing she did every night towards the end of her shift.

  It won’t always be like this, Jess. You are a strong bitch!

  The mantra inexplicably allowed her a sigh of relief. She stood back from the sink, checked herself out in the mirror, and decided she would go fuck the stranger on the other side of the door and try to feel anything aside from shame. She unlocked the door and started back out to the living room.

  “I am so sorry. I was just making sure I looked my best for—.”

  A gust of air blew from her left and before she knew it, had been slammed into the adjace
nt wall of the hallway. The right side of her face took the brunt of the force against a wall, giving her an instant taste of blood. Her nerves on edge, it took a moment to gather what was happening. Once she realized her vision had not been blurred from the intense hit into the wall, but the fact her face had been submerged in plastic wrap, her heart began to jackhammer. The outline from the jock-like physique of the stranger that she escorted back to the rental, had each arm going past her ears, pressing his palms to the wall. He had the plastic wrap pulled tightly across her face, leaving her unable to gasp in fear.

  Jessie felt her lungs start to burn as they craved oxygen. It was odd to her that she had even noticed during her current predicament, but the man’s actions struck her as unusual. In every movie she could recall, when a maniac snaps, he is violent and choppy in his motions. The blur in front of her was composed, not out of sorts at all. The slight burn had escalated into a five-alarm fire in her lungs now. Her thoughts and coordination started to get foggy. She could see her arms through the plastic try to hit the muscled body in front of her. At that moment, she became very scared because while she saw her hands motion, it seemed like she was watching someone else. Her sense of touch was slipping away, barely registering the fabric of the man’s shirt she had feebly attempted to pound on. Her ears surrounded by the wrap heard a muffled giggle from the man that immediately pierced her soul.

  The brut hands of the psycho moved Jessie like a ragdoll, off the wall, and down to the ground. At this point, Jessie told herself, screamed to herself, to get her switchblade from her pocket. She attempted to throw a vengeful blow to the man’s face. To her dismay, she felt a slight tickle in her right hand, possibly a visible twitch, but nowhere near executing a staggering hit. Jessie felt her mind slip further back into the darkness. The plastic wrap had been hastily thrown upon her face, causing a fold around her eye area. The man must have recognized this as well. He had her pinned down, sitting on her hips, and leaned over to look at her face. He noticed the fold by her eyes and removed his hands from the floor where they had secured the plastic, to flatten the fold. After moving one hand to her neck, he took the free hand to straighten the sheet of film, allowing the cold eyes of a man with no remorse to look at her as she sunk further away.

  Jessie couldn’t move her arms to reach in her jacket pocket. The man mumbled something, or yelled something, for all Jessie knew. The furious pain in her lungs had subsided, letting her know the fear was almost over. She sunk back in her mind, to the point she no longer saw the murderous bastard that was in the process of stealing her life from her. She saw only darkness for a moment, then saw a familiar scene. It was her room. Not her current hellhole off McKerney Avenue, but the room she grew up in while living in Redmond, with her family. The room that always held the best memories for her was now right in front of her. Walls plastered with boy bands and corkboards with notes and polaroid pictures of her adventures with her cousins and family. Jessie felt the beat in her chest slow down to a crawl.

  Fight, she thought.

  She looked around the vintage room she adored to see the twin size bed she had just remembered being so comfortable in, a mere moment ago. It had purple and pink flowers on the comforter and a Team Umizoomi plush doll next to her pillow. It had been years since Jessie thought about that plush doll, but in that memory, it meant the world. It represented comfort and security. It was a symbol of all the love and happiness she held in her beginning years.

  In the distance, she heard her mother’s voice call for her to go to bed. The voice held the same loving tone as when Jessie had been called to dinner each night. She looked at the bed, purple nightstand with a small lit lamp, and accepted her finality. She pulled down the blanket and crawled in. She instantly felt safe and, at it was at that moment, Jessie felt no more pain. She embraced the warmth and never wanted it to end. The comforter felt like she was being hugged by clouds. The last physical feeling she registered was the curl of her lips forming into a slight smile as the horrible man stared over her, into the soulless windows that were once her eyes.

  CHAPTER 1

  The steady downpour of rain had made the seemingly simple task of crossing the business center, exponentially harder. Sisto was not sure what he had been expecting, however having his forty pounds of tactical gear getting saturated from the sky fall of Nimbus clouds, had not been on his list of plausible obstacles that day. The sky was a vengeful dark gray, and per the local meteorologist correspondent from the news, was to come and go in Saratoga City all week. The mid-afternoon sky was void of any sunlight or reflection from the clouds, making it nearly impossible to tell the time if one didn’t have a watch or phone.

  Sisto’s heart was pounding and felt bile rise in his throat, not from nerves but from running in formation within the middle of the pack, surrounded by his other five team members. Every breath he took in was tainted with the trailing excitement of a synthetic grape flavor his team members had been exuding. The Reels, the psychic ability he gained as a side effect from surviving a tragedy almost nine years back, had left a jumble of cross-wired connections in his brain. His senses had become a junkyard, scraps of scents and tastes he knew belonged with one action, often invaded his personal space caused by the actions of himself or others around him.

  He coughed, feeling the saliva in the back of his throat start to incorporate the sting of the still rising bile from his stomach. He swallowed his wandering thoughts down, knowing he could not break formation as every moving piece in the team acted as one cohesive unit. Three members ahead of him and directing their path was the team leader, Sergeant Luke Norton. Norton rose his left fist up to his salt and pepper hair, signaling from the front for the unit to halt. The smacking of everyone’s boots hitting the wet concrete went silent as if you had been watching something on the television at home and hit the mute button.

  A moment later, Norton sent up another signal, and the team wrapped against the wall of the closest building, trying to avoid any opportunity to appear as sitting ducks. Sisto looked ahead to get a feel for Norton’s analysis of the surroundings. He felt slight comfort for some reason, as Norton turned back with his camouflage grease paint-covered face, displaying a wolf’s grin. The man was in his element. Luke Norton came from a long line of military folks. Barely enough time to catch his breath, the unified group broke across the exposed area until they had reached the Charles T. Henkleman building.

  The fifteen-story building housed numerous high-level Fortune Five Hundred companies, each subleasing a floor in the downtown Saratoga City structure. It was part of the city’s new initiative for trying to attract bigger companies that would normally set up shop in places like Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York City. Sisto and the others had been at the station shooting range, clocking hours and perfecting their precision, when Norton was notified over the radio that their team was summoned to respond to a potential hostage situation. SCPD dispatch relayed the message after an incoming call from an intern for the company Abelko Elite Industries had said the place was overtaken by a handful of people with automatic weapons.

  She was in the back room refilling the coffee machines, as an intern would when she heard a disruption on the sales floor. It sounded like someone popping bubble wrap from where she had been, but upon approach, she saw at least four people with ski masks pointing weapons at very scared employees. They had gathered the entire staff to the center of the sales floor and had them get on their knees for a better tactical advantage. The intern was lucky enough to be hidden by the shadow of the hallway and quickly back stepped until she found an open office door. She dialed out and gave the best synopsis she could but per Norton’s recap on the ride over to the business center, the dispatch agent heard gunfire before the line dropped.

  Norton waved Kendrell, who was covering the rear of the unit, to approach the front. Kendrell was a proficient member of the team and in one fluid motion, swung his gear pack off to grab a tool to relieve the industrial door of its duties. Sisto couldn’t
view which tool Kendrell had used from his current positioning, but within seconds, he could hear the prying of the aluminum metal door. A ring hit his ears from the snap of the hydraulic brace that forcibly slowed down the door from slamming. Kendrell stood back with the door open and let every member pass through before resuming his position of flanking the rear. Norton led the way, guiding everyone to replicate the movement of scaling the walls while positioning their tactical weapons above them in case they came under fire.

  Sisto was rounding the stairwell that led to the third floor and while ascending with his team, felt the burning in his quads let him know he would be paying for the abuse long after the situation was over. Sisto saw at the start of the stairwell, a very large and heavy plaque that held a directory of business names listed. Scanning while moving, he caught Abelko with the number fourteen to its left.

  “Fuck me,” Sisto muttered.

  Ten more floors. Sweating profusely, Sisto had two thoughts that overrode the intensity of the situation. First, he was glad it was poorly lit in the stairwell so no one could tell if it was he was indeed sweating like a hog. Second, the absurd thought of what he would eat for lunch after the situation was resolved, popped into his head. Knowing he should be thinking about all the tactical training he had extensively been preparing for; all he could ponder was whether he wanted a Philly cheesesteak or a breakfast burrito. The short-lived distraction was booted from the forefront of his mind as Norton again held up his signature fist. The team stopped as Norton used a mirror to assess the top of the adjacent stairwell. The dynamic force resumed pace and got up to the fourteenth floor just in time to avoid viewing a full cardiac arrest from Sisto. He was not fat or lazy or anything like that. Average height and build, he got enough exercise for a normal human. When he came onto Norton’s unit, he quickly realized he should have been preparing since middle school if he wanted to keep up with the Captain America clones.