by Peter Fang
Koda thought he was dreaming, so he opened his eyes and glared at the guy invading his private time. The stranger repeated again in a very calm voice, “I know you are looking for the hit-and-run killer that took the lives of your son and your wife. Do you want to know who they are?”
Koda stared at the man in disbelief and wondered if he was still dreaming. He had so many questions, but words were trapped in his lips.
The guy intoned in a shallow whisper. Koda felt he was in a dream and couldn’t believe that he was reading the man’s lips. “I know who killed your kid and wife. I will tell you where he lives. ‘A life for a life,’ as you whispered in your dreams, remember? But if you want to take his life, you have until tonight to make up your mind. A life is what I am here to collect, and I shall give you a phrase to recite; once you recite it, you will know where to find. But remember, you can never go back because a life is what I am here to collect.”
Koda woke up in a stir. He looked around but didn't see anyone sitting next to him. The crowd erupted into a frenzy of cheers––the Mariners had lined up a home run. The crowd was getting even more rowdy. He heard the announcer introducing the next batter and the loud overhead music started to blare. Koda looked past the wave of the crowd and searched for anyone making eye contact with him. If it was a dream, it was too real. His eyes searched passed several cheering men and then there he was. Someone staring back at him on the stairs leading to the food court. His face was the same face he saw in the dream, and then he realized those eyes that looked so familiar were the same eyes he saw from the photo he took of Blake's picture frame—Manfred. Koda stood up and started to move across the seats, heading for the exit. In response, Manfred turned and walked away at a brisk pace. Koda tried to catch up, but he felt his legs were still numb. He took two steps and almost fell onto the ground.
“Are you okay, sir?” Someone tried to offer him support but Koda pushed back with his hands. He forced himself up and exited the row of seats. He struggled with his legs and moved up the stairs, limping, following Manfred. But Manfred was steadily outpacing him.
“Thief! Stop him!” Koda shouted out at Manfred's back. A security guy near the top of the stairway was staring down at Koda, and Koda poked his finger back at him in Manfred's direction. Koda’s voice only turned desperate when the security guard ignored Manfred, but stared back at Koda with increasing concern.
“The guy next to you, the guy in the black t-shirt!” Koda’s voice rose again into a feverish pitch as he saw Manfred pass the security guard on his way to the top floor. Koda started to wonder if Manfred was real.
Finally, the security guard reached out his hands to stop Manfred, but Manfred slid his left arm and pushed the guard's hands away. The security guard suddenly knelt down in pain, cradling his hands.
Now Koda was sure that Manfred existed and that he was not dreaming. He lurched forward and forced himself up the stairs, hand over fist. He passed the security guard's limp body and called out, “Someone please call out, get 9-1-1.” Koda did not stop; he pushed through the crowd and reached the top of the stairs, but there was no sign of Manfred. He pushed through the crowds to his right and followed his instincts by heading towards the exit. There were two police officers responding to the emergency call, and they stopped Koda.
“You have to come with us, sir.” The two officers stopped Koda in front of them.
“Damn it! It's not me you have to stop. I'm an investigator with the FBI.”
One of the officers asked, “Can I see your ID?”
Koda saw Manfred again far ahead, exiting the stadium.
“That guy there! Stop him! He’s heading out of the stadium. Stop that man!” Koda desperately tried to catch up with Manfred, but he found himself in a dreamlike state, and something was slowing his legs down, as if he were walking in wet clothes.
“Sir? Your ID.” The officers ignored Koda's pleading.
Koda tried to pass the two officers, but they blocked his way.
“Sir, your ID, please!” The officer's voice grew stern. He had one of his hands ready to draw his service pistol.
Koda saw Manfred stop near the entrance and look back at him. Even from a distance of more than forty yards, Koda could feel Manfred talking to him; there was no sound, but it was as clear as reading a book.
“You have to make a decision tonight,” the lips read, and then Manfred was gone.
“Sir?” the police officer asked again.
Koda reluctantly took out his badge and flashed it to the two officers.
“What's going to happen tonight?” Koda asked.
A voice replied, “Your nightmare will soon end; just answer the call of your revenge.”
Call of your revenge? Koda wondered what that meant.
Koda and the stadium security reviewed the footage and were surprised to see that the Manfred guy was wearing a coverall, purposefully hiding his face from the camera. The video was only able to track the person until he left the stadium. To search for other footages, Koda would need to ask the city’s transportation department for any security camera reels from the street. But for privacy reasons, he needed to get a form from the judge and police station that the purpose was for a possible crime. He wouldn't be able to get it that day, so he finally relented and went home.
On his way back from the stadium, he had the weird feeling that someone was following him. He took several indirect routes and doubled back to check if any cars were tailgating him. The video from the stadium spooked everyone who was involved because they all had a different memory of what “Manfred” looked like. The officer that went down swore that it was a young girl that touched him and made him feel sick and fell to his knees, while Koda saw an older man in his sixties. Another officer near the gate didn’t recall seeing anyone wearing dark coveralls, and the two officers who stopped Koda saw a woman holding a little boy’s hand with a Halloween outfit. The costumes were a witch-and-spider combo outfit that his wife made that year when his boy turned five. The description brought Koda back to that painful night. The recurring images of his deceased family that Koda suppressed for many years were raging back to him. Hazy images were becoming vivid colors again. Koda felt his heart rate rising and his mouth running dry. It would allow him to feel the world again if he could finally find out the truth of what happened that night––why, who, and most importantly, where was the killer? Koda hoped that the killer was alive and well; it would be most unfortunate if the killer was no longer around. Koda had almost given up the hope of one day finding the suspect, and at least in his dreams, carrying out the dozens of ways of dispatching the killer. Right beneath his raging thoughts, he had a feeling that soon he would be looking straight into the killer’s eyes as the killer drew his last breath.
Koda vaguely remembered getting home and opening his front door. He grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and sank into his large couch. He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn’t even know he left his badge inside the refrigerator. The room was too quiet, so he flipped on the TV to drown out his thoughts—he tried. He drank half of the beer before finally dozing off. He was tired of fighting his dreams and suppressing his emotions. Life is not worth living if you couldn't feel anything.
“Time to wake up,” a whisper trickled into his ears. Koda felt he was awake, but he didn’t move. Something was pulling at him to get him to sit up, but his body slumped back into the seat. When he opened his eyes, he saw himself standing on the top of the balcony, only inches away from falling. He leaned back and fell to the floor, knocking through the screen door and hitting his head on the floor.
“What the hell?” The words crawled out of his throat like hundreds of razor blade cuts. “Was I sleepwalking?” Koda then recalled there was a phrase that Manfred told him to recall in order to enact revenge. What was that phrase again? He searched for the words but drew a blank. Suddenly, he sensed someone was looking through his window, like how you felt when someone was standing behind you and watching you. Koda slowly
unplugged himself from the sofa's grip and walked over to the window. He peeked through the window's blinds and down at the street, but there was no one there. Then he saw a dark shadow at the street’s corner.
“Awake?” the shadow croaked.
Koda didn't say anything, simply nodded. It was an instinct that he didn't know he had, but he could almost feel the presence of the shadow as if it were in the room with him, having a conversation.
“Good, I want to let you know where the killer is, but you have to give me something in return.”
“Nothing illegal,” whispered Koda.
“Illegal? You want to heal the pain, don't you? I'm here to give you that chance. But you have to recite a passage, as I have told you.”
“A passage? Wait––I still have so many questions.” Koda shifted his body to open the window blinds so he could get a better view outside the window, but the shadow was hiding behind a corner and barely visible.
The shadow recited a passage, “Call me a reaper, call me a king. I will give you the key you seek, but you shall return with a deed. Your deed is to collect the life of someone you dream, but if you fail, your life will be the deed. A life for a life, was what you seek. I shall be waiting at the gate of hell. One way or the other, I will head back with my deed.”
Koda suddenly could see images of a house, and he recognized the contour of the house even if there was only an outline. At one point in his life, he spent many hours in that house; it was a house that he knew even if he was sleepwalking into the front yard.
“Matt's house? No! This is a mistake!”
“It’s not.”
“But how––why?” Koda started to scream in his head.
“Search inside of yourself. You already knew the answer.”
“How?” Koda felt a kernel of memory that started to emerge inside of his mind and blossomed into images of his wife flashing before his eyes. There were images of them fighting, then his wife meeting with his friend in his house, then the two becoming intimate. The images flashed ahead to the night of Halloween. His wife and son were out walking in a dark part of the street. A car approached, and it was his best friend inside a car––not a vehicle that Koda recognized. His son waved at his best friend, Matt, and Matt waved back. His wife looked surprised to see Matt, and her body language was tense. They exchanged some conversation. Matt was waving his hand to get Koda’s wife to get into the car, but she refused. She repeated something to Matt, and Matt spread his hands. Finally, Matt threw his hands up in frustration as the woman walked away with her son. Matt waited until Koda’s wife was about twenty yards in front; then he accelerated forward in a cloud of smoke before running into the two. The impact tossed their bodies into the nearby bushes. Matt hit the brakes, and the wheels slid to a stop. He took out a flashlight and aimed at the two limp bodies. He killed the lights, hesitated for a few seconds, then hit the gas and fled into the darkness.
The images faded and Koda was on the floor. He balled his fists and slammed them into the ground. He pounded them until they started to bleed. “No, no, no, no...” his voice cracked and trailed off into silence.
“My best friend?” Koda shook his head in disbelief. “No, this must be a ruse, or I'm going crazy. He was at the funeral with me, we were out hiking, at a family barbecue. How could I not have known that they were having an affair?” Koda stood up and felt the floor was moving and collapsed to the ground. He reached for the nearby couch and slowly propped himself back up again. He felt a swelling and a tug on his left thigh, so he rubbed it with his hand. When he touched the spot, it burned. He looked down and it looked like a nasty mosquito bite. There was an inch of swelling with a small hole in the middle. “Shit, when did we start to have mosquitoes around here?”
Koda managed to prop himself up with one leg against a wall and limped over to a chair and sat down. His hands were shaking as he took out his phone and dialed the familiar number. The phone rang several times before a man's voice answered the call.
“Hey, what's up, partner?” A jovial voice lit up from the speaker.
“Halloween hit-n-run, remember that?” Koda’s voice tensed.
There was an awkward pause on the phone. Koda could feel the tension on the line.
“Yeah, how could I forget? Buddy, are you having nightmares again?”
“No, I slept very well, better than any time in my life.”
“Oh?” Matt couldn’t help but reveal skepticism in his voice.
“You know why? Because I finally figured out who the killer was.”
“Who—was it?” Matt's voice cracked just slightly.
“I need your help,” Koda continued. “I can't talk about it on the phone. Meet me at the Old-Wrinkles cafe. You know, where we used to hang out after our shift? We can figure out how to collect evidence and bring the guy to justice.”
“You mean tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, see you in about an hour? I need to put my kids to sleep first, and then we can talk as long as you want.”
“In an hour.” Koda confirmed and hung up.
He parked his car about a block away and walked. This way no one inside the cafe could see him arrive. Koda arrived outside the Old-Wrinkles cafe in the quiet evening. It was around 11 p.m. and there were only a handful of customers inside the dreary cafe. He waited outside until he checked out the place. He was five minutes late––intentionally. There were no phone calls or text messages from Matt. Everything looked normal inside the cafe, just no Matt. Koda sensed someone was watching him, but he could not see anyone else nearby. He waited for another five minutes before walking into the cafe.
The cafe hostess nodded at him as he came in the door. The door creaked as it closed shut against the cold wind.
Koda didn't recognize the person behind the register, probably because of the hour...he realized he never came here this late.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Black coffee, tall, no room.”
“Sure, coming right up. Help yourself to a seat.” The hostess pointed vaguely at the open dining tables.
Koda waited for ten minutes and watched the last customer leave the cafe. Then he felt a buzz on his phone and saw a text from Matt. Sorry, mate, I can't make it tonight, the kid is having a fever and just threw up. Wife needs help. Can I give you a call later?
“Shit!” Koda finished the coffee and was about to leave, but he sensed someone was coming––two people approached the cafe, and their intention was not robbery—it was to kill him. He stopped in the middle of the cafe and searched for his piece, but he realized he left it inside his car. The image was getting clearer: two masked men getting close to the cafe, their hands about to push the door open. Koda quickly hid inside the men's room.
The masked men pushed their way into the cafe. One of the men hit the hostess and knocked her unconscious, while the other pointed his shotgun at the clerk behind the cashier.
“Show me your hands and open the register!”
The young clerk raised his arms in the air and nodded. “Don't shoot, please––I'll do what you say.” He moved in to open the register.
“Where is he?” One of the men raised his handgun and pointed at the clerk.
Clerk hesitated.
The other man with the shotgun pumped a slug into the chamber, and pointed the barrel at the clerk.
“Please don’t!” The clerk pointed his finger at the men's room. His bowels gave and yellow streams of urine soaked through his pants.
The man with the shotgun signaled to the other man to investigate.
The other man moved to the men's room and listened. A toilet flushed, but as the water drained, there were no hints of a person inside the stall. He knocked on the door and said, “Sir, the cafe is closing, can you finish up? I need to clean the bathroom.” He then backed away and pointed his handgun at the door.
He waited, and the door was unlocked, but no one came out.
“Sir? Could you please finish up and co
me out?” the gunman asked in a very polite tone. His voice sounded just like the clerk.
But nothing.
The gunman kicked the door open and then trained his arm to the right but didn't see anyone. He heard a sound from the ceiling, but before he could look up, a shadow kicked his gun away. The weapon ricocheted off the wall and into the toilet stall.
Koda hit the gunman's larynx with his open palm; the gunman clasped his hand around his neck and started to choke. He hit him again in his solar plexus, and the burly man bent over.
Koda sensed the other gunman had already grabbed the clerk and was coming his way. He knocked the burly man unconscious and then went inside the toilet stall to grab the gun. He turned and aimed the gun to search for a target.
A loud band rang out and Koda felt the heavy slug punch him in the left shoulder. His eyes closed instinctively in pain and he pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He pulled it again, but the trigger didn't fire. He heard the shotgun round getting chambered and the clerk was screaming.
The clerk tried to run out of the stall but tripped over the gunman.
The gunman stumbled back a few steps, giving Koda time to respond.
Koda realized that the gun’s safety was engaged, so his trained thumb disengaged the lock and did a quick double-tab at the gunman.
Two rounds hit the gunman's body and he was knocked back against the wall. The shotgun went off and hit the clerk behind the neck, killing the clerk instantly.
Koda started to shoot at the gunman's head, but his left shoulder's injury affected his aim. Both bullets missed the gunman’s head.
The gunman pumped another round and fired at Koda, and the slug spattered the bathroom tiles inches away from Koda’s face.
Koda aimed his gun and pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit the gunman in the eye. The 9mm hollow-point traveled through the gunman’s eye socket and hit the back of his skull, breaking his cranial cap open like a watermelon.