Sitting at a booth in the crowded pub, they shared large portions of buffalo chicken wings and french fries, washing the munchies down with light beers. Tracy and Barbara took turns commenting on a few of the guys flexing their stuff around, while Jaimie smiled along pretending to agree with their commentary. Her taste was more for the smart-sexy type—tall, dark and lean, glasses perhaps, and well articulated—as opposed to the meaty, brainless, self-absorbed guys that her girlfriends so much adored. These meatheads were a dime a dozen, right off the factory belt, and much too commonplace for Jaimie's taste. Sometimes when they spewed their pick-up lines at her, she would feel as if she would need a deep hole to go hide in until they went away.
A guy holding a beer brushed by the booth, earring dangling from his lobe, his head mostly shaved, a farm of stubble texturing his dome. Although his eyes had not been shaded by sunglasses, Jaimie felt a surge of discomfort at the sight of him, and she shuddered at the spooky reminders of this afternoon.
"What's with all the guys shaving their heads nowadays?" Barbara wondered aloud, shoving a fry in her mouth. "They look ridiculous."
"Seems to be a new thing. I don't like it, though." Tracy motioned her hands in front of her as if she were giving someone a shampoo. "I like to run my hands through long wavy locks."
The conversation prompted strong images of Jaimie's unusual experiences, and she felt compelled it bring it up. "You know, I saw a couple of strange looking bald guys today. One on the subway, one in climatology. They both had the same kind of clothes on, all black. Sunglasses too." She smiled in effort to cover her discomfort, hoping that either Barbara or Tracy might have seen a similarly dressed guy, and would comment.
Barbara wiped buffalo wing sauce from her mouth with a napkin. "Yeah, they're all over Greenwich Village. It's a gay thing, cause I can't see any girl in her right mind finding that attractive. They dress for each other, you know?"
Jaimie sipped her beer, at once wondering if she might have let her thoughts get too carried away. Maybe it was a gay thing; she wasn't too familiar with much pertaining to that lifestyle. Perhaps both of the bald guys she saw today had behaved normally as far they'd been concerned, and were simply trying to allure the others, as strange as it seemed. But then what was that odd black object the bald guy in the subway held in his hands? And why did the other guy steal it?
Like spectators at a zoo, a couple of guys wearing jeans and F.I.T. sweatshirts suddenly emerged from the crowd and approached the girls' table. Jaimie cupped her hands over her ears, attempting to tune them out, but still managed to hear them comment on how beautiful the three of them were. Each had enough muscles beneath their sweatshirts to blanket a ship's hull, but it didn't make up for the blank expressions on their faces, dumb, one-dimensional, a clear indication of limited intelligence. God rarely gave out equal amounts of brains and brawn.
This was an ideal time to excuse herself to the bathroom. The effects of the alcohol hadn't done a very good job in helping her forget the day's events—only succeeded in pressuring her bladder—and she wasn't in the mood to be social with these meatheads. Barbara and Tracy would just have to wrestle the pests on their own—which Jaimie knew would be quite well and fine with both of them.
Battling the crowd, she mazed her way to the rear of the crowded bar. Upon her arrival at the restrooms she found a line circling out from the ladies' room around the corner, reaching almost to the kitchen, at least fifteen girls waiting to pee and powder. It'd take a good half hour before she got in. She spun away in an angry huff and worked back through the crowd. From a distance she saw the two meatheads taking residence in the booth alongside Barbara and Tracy, each trying to swing their hooks around the girls' shoulders.
Returning to the booth, Jaimie retrieved her knapsack from beneath the table. "Line's too long. I'm gonna use the bathroom at the Math building, then probably go home."
"Jame," Barbara said, ignoring her. "This is Dan." Her cheeks glowed bright red, probably a combination of beer, hot chicken wings, and the delight of her new company.
Dan smiled. He had blond hair, nice shoulders, but crooked teeth. Meathead.
"He was just telling us that an F.I.T. student was murdered last night."
Jaimie shivered as she shouldered her knapsack, her fluster suddenly frozen. "My God. Who?"
Dan shrugged, didn't say a word. Apparently his vocabulary was limited to a couple dozen adjectives and nouns. He smiled again, showing those gnarly teeth, then redirected his efforts back to Barbara. Clearly Dan couldn't give a hoot about the dead kid. He wanted to get laid, and to Jaimie, his aspirations couldn't have been more visible. Nice way to start a conversation, Dan.
Barbara smiled. "He doesn't know. Just heard it himself."
"Well, I'm going home," Jaimie said. "If you find out anything, let me know." She received nods and good-byes from her friends, who seemed quite content with their new acquaintances. After a struggle with the crowd, Jaimie found the exit and went outside.
It felt good to breathe in the cool nighttime air, as if she were clearing out all the impurities inhaled inside the smoky bar. She quickly paced back towards the campus, anxious clouds of air unfurling from her lungs. A hundred yards away, the Walton Math Building's lights glowed like beacons in the center of the ocean. The amber spray from the lampposts guided her along the campus walkway as she gathered a few thoughts about her father and what he had said to her earlier this afternoon.
A couple of kids were murdered, here in the neighborhood.
They were about your age.
She realized now how heedless her regard had been for his concerns, and she immediately felt waves of guilt. Why hadn't she taken him more seriously? Her father was the best, a wonderful human-being whose primary concerns centered solely on her well-being and her safety—even though he could be a pain in the neck every now and then. Why couldn't she have just listened to him earlier? It would have made her feel all the much better now. She felt herself longing for him, for his nurturing, realizing how little she'd seen him lately, how little she really listened to him when they were together, promising herself she'd make an effort to spend more time with him soon.
Then she wondered: could this murder that Dan mentioned be the same one that supposedly happened in the neighborhood, the one Dad had told me about? No. It couldn't be. City's too big, too much going on at once.
She tried real hard to clear the unpleasant thought from her mind, that a student from her school, someone she might have known, had been murdered in her neighborhood. Too close to home. She continued her forward pace, slightly dazed, passing the stairway leading down to the Q-train subway station, now halfway to the math building.
Suddenly, someone—a man, or so it appeared from this distance—emerged from the cover of trees at the darkened corner of the math building. Something seemed strange about him—the way he just appeared from the darkness, as if he had been hiding, the way he was walking, steadfast and strong, determined. She looked around; although a few people were walking about in the distance, she was in closest proximity to the stranger.
Again she glimpsed forward. He appeared to be a tall man, but she couldn't see much more for the shadow of the building shrouded his features. She could see that he was pacing quickly towards her. She slowed, squinting to get a better look, taking each step slowly, tentatively.
He passed through the amber glow of a lamppost.
The dull gleam reflected dully off his bald head. And his sunglasses.
The student from her classroom.
She stopped in her tracks, heart slamming in her chest. She took an indecisive step backwards, not sure if she should just ignore him and pass him by, or walk in another direction.
He continued to advance at a hurried pace, passing under another streetlamp.
The image she beheld as the light from the second streetlamp showered the stranger with its ghostly yellow phosphorescence could perhaps be described in a million different ways, but at this terrifying mome
nt her mind could not calculate a single solitary word, as the horror clearly deemed itself too excessive to comprehend. Her jaw slackened, her eyes bulged in her skull, a sharp fear-induced agony probed her brain: clear warning signs that screamed get away!
She knew at that very moment she had no choice but to trust her initial glimpse, to believe in the shocking reality of what she had just witnessed, to accept it as real and not an illusioned probability, to obey her instincts. If she didn't, there would be no time to escape with her life.
She looked again. The bald student was holding an odd looking object in both hands—like that of the man in the subway.
It, his hands and forearms, were drenched in blood.
Jaimie found herself screaming, not because she wished to alert anyone—she certainly didn't want the bald student to realize that she had seen him—but because all the pain and fear suddenly tormenting her mind intensified to a proportion so great that it demanded escape from the confines of her head, like an animal from a cage, and it did so, quite successfully—her terrified screams their release.
Answering her cries, the bald student started running after her, his black boots slapping the pavement like two great mallets. Jaimie panicked, spun around and darted into the Q-train subway entrance a few feet back to her right, taking the steps leading down two at a time. She stumbled at the bottom, pressing her hands against the wall to break her fall.
She quickly glanced up and saw the bald student standing at the top of the steps, looking down upon her. She stood paralyzed with fear for what seemed an eternity, gazing at him and the veiny lines of blood trickling down the black pants he wore. She started crying, staring, afraid to move.
He started coming down after her.
She let out another panicked scream, raced into the musty station, heart slamming against her ribcage, tears coursing down her face in an uncontrollable flow. Quickly looking about, no police were in eyeshot—no people for that matter other than an elderly MTA worker perched behind the bullet-proof barrier of the token booth. He stared blankly at her, no compassion or concern for her tears.
Without hesitation, she leapt over the turnstile and sped down a second flight of steps, hearing a train screeching to a stop. She lunged into the terminal; a few passengers had dispersed from the now stationary train. Its doors rang, alerting those to prepare for departure. With a last burst, she threw herself into the first car and fell to the floor.
The doors slammed shut.
And the bald student was there, banging at the doors, leaving smears of blood on the window, his mouth sealed shut and unmoving, all emotions drained from his face. It seemed as if his efforts at that terrifying moment were solely instinctual, animalistic.
She scampered to the opposite side of the train as it pulled away, leaving the man behind holding his strange object. Through the window, Jaimie could see a few people scurrying away from him, their eyes wide with fear at the sight of the blood on his hands and clothes.
She quickly looked around, fear still racing through her blood. A dozen people sat scattered within the car as it shook along, looking in her direction. She stood up and gazed away, thinking with fear that one of them might be a bald man with sunglasses. If so, she would have no choice but to break down and surrender to his demands.
She looked away, down to the floor, saw a flattened piece of chewing gum stuck there like an old gray nickel: something so insignificant, yet now, a sharp symbolization of pure, utter dread.
Shivering, she took a second, more careful glance about the car. A homeless man was stretched out across three seats. A few young women chatted in Spanish. An elderly black man was talking to himself.
But no bald man.
She looked out into the darkness of the tunnel beyond the window, wondering where the train was taking her.
At the moment it did not matter. As long as she was away from...from him.
Run run, need to run...
The words had repeated themselves in David Traynor's mind, consuming his every thought, his every move, just as they had earlier. He climbed the fire escape, never realizing until he finally made it onto the roof that the Harbinger had followed him to the apartment and was lurking nearby with the intention to steal back the Atmosphere for himself.
David would rather die than allow that to happen.
When he finally found himself alone again with the wondrous object, only one objective circled his mind: experience the true meaning of the Atmosphere, as quickly as possible, and with no interference. How amazing a feeling to realize that no other alternative existed! It was his destiny, his calling in life. It had finally come—and the Atmosphere had revealed it to him.
The Harbinger, Harold he called himself, the selfish fuck had got in the way, tried to get in on his time with the Atmosphere. At the time David realized that he had no choice but to postpone everything until he knew for sure he could proceed uninterrupted, away from Harold's intrusion.
He had watched from the rooftop as Harold the Harbinger stumbled down the fire escape into the street, running wildly, arms flailing, calling out My Supplier! Come back! at the top of his lungs. When he finally disappeared, David's mind re-triggered his desire to run, and he followed its call. He went across the rooftop, down the fire escape on the opposite side of the building, through the alley and across 189th street to the elevated subway platform three blocks away where the Q-train express stopped every fifteen minutes.
Cease...
David stopped running, clouds of frozen breath spewing from his lips. He found himself atop the Q-train platform, the wind whipping restlessly at this elevation. Staring out into the bleak emptiness surrounding him, he saw that nobody else was in sight.
He waited for his mind to give him guidance.
Commence...
He sat down on the cement platform, leaning back against a billboard. He placed his headphones on and pressed play on the walkman.
Music boomed forth, the beat repetitive and incessant like the triggering cadence that had compelled him to run.
He waited an eternity, or so it seemed, until his mind finally told him to remove the Atmosphere from his pocket.
The train shook on, every passing minute feeling like an hour. Jaimie's mind wandered in search of solace as she watched the bum sleeping on the seats in front of her. His body jerked and spasmed as if roaches crawled under his clothing—not for one second did she rule out this possibility—or bad dreams floated inside his head. The odor emanating from his body introduced a roll of nausea to her pipes, but she refused to move from her seat until the train came to a stop. She could then sneak out without anyone taking notice, fearing that the bald guy might have found a way onto the train and was trying to spot her moving through the glass windows in the doors separating the other cars. Or that maybe a different bald guy might come after her. After all, she did see two of them. At this point, anything was possible.
She turned and looked out the window, cupping her palms around her eyes to shield out the reflection of the interior light. The train emerged from the tunnel and rose up onto an el, revealing a tight sweep of apartment buildings and warehouses. Oh no...she was leaving the city, entering into the Bronx. Her intentions had been to get out of the train, regardless of where she ended up, to find a phone and call the police if she didn't have the good fortune of spotting a cruiser or a cop nearby. But with all the God-damned trains in the city, the one waiting for her had to be an express—to the Bronx, no less.
Count your blessings, Jame. If that train hadn't pulled in at that exact moment...
She continued to gaze out. The neighborhoods here were no place for a pretty young girl to walk around all by herself.
She felt the train slowing.
An announcement blared through the speakers in the train's ceiling.
Next stop, 190th Street.
Ecstasy, pure ecstasy, infinite orgasm, oh the colors, the beautiful colors, take me, dear Giver, take me, my blood, my semen, my fuel. It...is...yours...
The train slowed as it pulled into the 190th Street station. Jaimie peered out the window trying to see if perhaps a cop or someone trustworthy in appearance waited on the platform. Billboards advertising the most recent cinema movies flashed by, illuminated by amber halogens adrift in the ceiling of their overhangs. Finally, the train ground to a stop.
She needed to make a decision, quickly.
The doors rang open. Cool air blew in.
She darted from the train.
The cold night air bit her cheeks at once. Behind, the doors of the train rang, sealing her from the warm, safe interior, abandoning her on the platform of the 190th Street station in the Bronx. She watched with dismay as the red taillights of the train's last car shrank into pinpoints, and eventually disappeared into the night.
She turned and paced the length of the platform, her footsteps tapping atop the serrated plastic edged warning, echoing in the dark silence. On the street below a car's tires screeched, the rev of its engine tearing into the night like a monster's roar. Jaimie clutched her slamming heart at the loud intrusion, feeling more frightened and alone now than she ever had in her entire nineteen years—even more so than when she had been pursued by the bald stranger.
She felt a slight vibration under her feet. Turning, she saw a train in the far distance approaching from the opposite direction. A connection, back into the city.
"Yes!" She pumped her fist and walked briskly to the enclosed overpass at the north end of the platform. She took the steps quickly, two at a time, up, over, and then down. She could see the train's lights slowly growing from hints of illumination into widening searchlights.
She'd be on her way home in no time.
All of a sudden, she heard something odd. A groan—or so it seemed—emerging from behind the far side of a passenger port ten feet away. She tried to see through the small Plexiglas structure, but bill posters advertising a remake of the classic movie Invasion From Mars shielded its surface. She stayed unmoving. The train, only a hundred or so yards from the station, would pull up to where she currently stood, giving her no need to move further down the platform.
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