Page 227 of On a Fault Line

It’s not pretty, but I do my best with the lingering effect of the drugs still coursing through my system.

I slip and slide on the floor from my dripping wet clothes, tumbling forward as the searing pain hits my elbows first and then my chin as they hit the ground.

Blood dribbles from my fresh wound, contaminating the sterile tiled floor. I focus on the black specks in the glow of the emergency lights. Rolling to my side and using my knee to prop myself up, I look back down the hallway.

Fuck!

Now there are two.

It’s like I’m seeing double.

I’m hallucinating. I have to be.

Two men.

Two trench coats.

Two rain hats. One is hanging from Mark’s fingertips. The other one is worn by the other man.

I’m doomed.

The two stalking men stride toward me.

They are strikingly similar—yet different.

I struggle to get up and get my legs to hold my weight.

They are closing in on me.

My head whips around again.

Now there’s three.

Mark takes up the center of the pointing V, leading the march down the hallway toward me.

My eyes squeeze tightly shut, praying that this is all one bad hallucinogenic dream. I pray that I wake up in my own bed and can be thankful that my imagination is what was playing tricks on me, and not this evil lurking at the periphery of my life.

Grabbing my damp hair, I pull. Clumps of strands pluck out, making me cry loudly in agony.

They are getting closer.

Closer.

I can hear their breaths exhaling from their lungs, they are that close.

“Ahhhh!” I scream into the charged air.

I recoil as a hand touches me, and I twist out.

And I run. And I don’t stop until I crash right into a white coat.

Looking up, and through the filter of my pooling tears, I plead. “Help me. I need help. He’s coming for me. Look!”

I punctuate my urgency by grabbing hold of the collar of the coat of the man and shaking.

“There, there, Miss Penny,” White Coat coos. “There, there.”

But when my eyes focus between the layers of tears, I see that it’s Rex.

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