A strange looking man entered the bar and sat at a table in a secluded part of the room. He was a heavyset man with large eyes, and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He looked tired and irritable and yet, was carefully observing everything that was happening around him.
His eyes darted back and forth at all the customers and then shifted towards the girls waiting the tables.
I immediately felt a chill down my spine when his eyes locked with mine. There was something about him that made me feel uneasy.
He lifted his hand and gestured me to come to him.
He kept looking at me as I reluctantly approached him. I have been working as a Hooters girl for a little over 4 years now. The work has had its share of high and lows while I navigate my way through medical school.
But it has helped me pay my bills while also allowing me to look after my 5 year old nephew.
Anyways, this was increasingly looking like one of those uncomfortable nights at the workplace.
“Welcome to Hooters. I am Stacy”
“What can I get you?” I asked .
He continued to stare at me in the face for a while and finally growled back, “Beer and chicken wings.”
I smiled and nodded. Even as I turned back to place the order, I could feel his gaze fall upon me.
Like ….he was measuring my every move.
‘Creepy!!’
He had a voracious appetite. Cleaned out 5 plates of wings and chugged half a dozen bottles of beer.
When I finally approached him with the bill, he asked “ How much?”
“That would be $147.” I said.
“I meant how much for the night?”
“ I am not that kind of girl and this isn’t that kind of place either”, I replied back calmly. This was not the first time a drunk customer was making a lewd pass at me.
I placed the bill at his table and he suddenly caught my hand.
“Where do you live? You have nothing to worry about. It’s just single night of fun. No harm done right?”, he smiled back to reveal two missing front teeth.
I yanked my hand away from his grasp and reported the incident to my manager. He was quickly escorted out of the building after being made to foot the bill.
He looked back at me one final time before heading out.
When my shift finally ended, I was exhausted. I packed some dinner for my nephew and got out of the restaurant to get to my car. As I was walking in the parking lot, I saw an old black sedan with tinted windows slowly go past me.
I got in my car and started driving. A few minutes later, I began to wonder if I was being tailed. It looked like the same sedan I had seen in the parking lot.
‘Was this the same guy who was at the bar?’, I thought to myself while also panicking at the same time.
I stepped on the gas to create more distance between me and the other car. The sedan picked up in speed as well.
Everytime I slowed, the driver also slowed down and when I hit the accelerator, he did the same.
I was being followed. There was no doubt.
I slowed down at a traffic signal when the light turned red. Luckily the sedan and I were separated by another car in between. I sped off before the light turned green. And kept driving without stopping.
A few moments later when I looked back in the rear view mirror, there was no sign of the sedan anymore. I heaved a huge sigh of relief.
I suddenly felt a piercing pain run through my body. The sedan appeared out of nowhere and crashed into my side window. As the black sedan crushed into my car, I caught a glimpse of the driver for a split second.
He was the same man who I saw at the bar with a frightening smile on his face.
I suddenly woke up in my bed, with beads of sweat dripping down my face. I ran my hands over my body to check if I was hurt. It was a dream.
I then slowly looked at the clock and realized it was already 8 AM.
I was running late for my medical school and my nephew was late for his school as well. Woke up my nephew, got him ready and prepared a quick breakfast for the two of us.
We reached his school just in the nick of time. As I saw my nephew Rudy enter the building, thoughts of the recent years flashed before my eyes.
Rudy was the son of my sister Emily.
Emily and I were inseparable as kids but had a falling out in our late teens. As a result, I had cut off all contact with my sister.
So after not talking to her for more than 7 years, it was a shock for me when I received a call from Child Services asking if I would take in Rudy.
Emily had died in an accident and they could not trace Rudy’s father. To have not been a part of her life all these years and to find out about her son in this manner, really broke my heart.
I felt a huge pang of guilt when I learned of her demise and it remains the biggest regret of my life.
As I reached the medical college, I rushed to the lab to get in time for class. All the students were already assembled around a table and listening to the professor.
As I inched closer to get a better look, my face turned white!
I was looking at the naked lifeless body of the man who came to the bar last night. There was a huge knife wound in his chest.
‘What on Earth is going on?’
‘Why is this man repeatedly coming into my life in the most bizarre ways?’
As I was beginning to question my own sanity, the professor took a scalpel in his hand and asked all of us to lean forward to get a closer look.
A wave of uneasiness enveloped me.
It was bad enough to be face abuse from this pervert, but now I have to see him get medically disembowelled.
I suddenly felt like vomiting and I cupped my mouth with hands to prevent any sort of gag reflex.
As the professor worked on his intestines, I could hold no longer and I barfed all over John Doe!
My mornings breakfast of cereal and oats forming a nice little puddle in the place where once his stomach was.
When I slowly lifted my head, I could see the professor looking at me speechless and horror stricken.
He then came to his senses, his face turning a deep crimson red. He started yelling at me at the top of his voice.
I became even the more pale, as his voice echoed through the entire building.
I could feel like I was going to faint, as my legs began to give away.
My batch mates caught hold of me before I fell to the floor and helped me get to the cafeteria.
They gave me some electrolytes to deal with the nausea. After a few minutes I felt much better even though I was still shaken from the episode.
I then received a phone call from my nephew’s principal. It seems there was some large suspicious looking man asking around the school for my nephew.
The panic started once again.
‘Who is this at the school now?’
I am the only family Rudy has anymore.
‘So why would anybody come looking for him?’
‘And who was the man lying dead in the cadaver lab?’
‘What on Earth is going on?’, I kept repeating to myself as I rushed towards my car.
When I reached the school, Rudy was sitting by the Principals office. The man who had come asking for him had left abruptly, when the Principal insisted on calling me first. I was relieved to find Rudy safe and thanked the teachers for being vigilant.
I decided to take Rudy back home. Fear and paranoia were gripping me. It was a crazy day and I could do with some rest before contemplating my next course of action.
As I opened the door to my apartment, I could feel my heart stop in my chest!!
The man was standing in my living room. He had tossed my home and was clearly looking for something. He saw me stand by the door and my nephew was there as well.
An evil grin appeared on his face.
As I thought of fleeing, he lunged quickly at me, caught me by the hair and pulled me back into the apartment.
He slapped me so hard that I crashed into one of the furnitures.
He then reached for my nephew and growled, “Where is it?”
“Where is it little boy?”
“Where is that musical box?”
My nephew started crying.
“I don’t know”, he cried out loud
“I don’t know any box” he was weeping as he was speaking.
“Don’t play with me stupid boy”, he growled back.
“Where is the music box your mother left you?”, he added as he cornered Rudy and pinned him against the wall. He was really hurting my nephew now.
For the first time, things began to make sense. When I received a call from Child Services following Emily’s death and met Rudy for the first time - he was holding onto a small music box. It was his most prized possession. He never let go of it and carried it with him everyday to school as well.
I saw Rudy’s backpack strewn on the floor. The box must definitely be inside.
“Should I tell the guy about it to save our lives?”
“Or will he kill us both after getting his hands on it.”
Then I saw he was carrying a gun in the small of his back.
I slowly scrambled to my feet and lunged at him with all my might.
Both of us hit the ground as I fell on top of him. I managed to lift the gun from his trousers and pointed it at him.
He glared at me while breaking out into an evil smile again.
“Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“ I wouldn’t recommend you to do anything stupid or you will be really sorry.”
“Who are you? What do you want with us?”, I asked him with the gun still pointed at him.
He slowly began to move forward.
“Stop right there or I will shoot”, I yelled back.
But he lunged at me and I fired two shots.
We both crashed to the floor again. His massive frame on top of me as he lay there lifeless.
I tried to wriggle free but he was a heavyset man. I could see a puddle of blood forming around us.
Rudy came running towards me to help and with great difficulty I managed to break free from him. I then called the cops.
When the police came, I learned about the identity of the man.
He was Tony Sanchez and a notorious bank robber. He also had a twin brother by the name of Curtis Sanchez. Both the Sanchez brothers were arrested following a heist but the authorities never managed to recover the stolen loot.
The police also recovered a small folder from a black sedan parked nearby my apartment, which of course belonged to Tony. It had a picture of Curtis and Emily who was cradling an infant Rudy in her arms. Curtis was killed during his stint in prison when he got involved in a gang fight. The body I saw in the lab must have been that of Curtis. There was also a picture of me and Emily smiling.
So that is how Tony managed to track me down following his release. He was in some way looking to recover his stash.
After the police left, Rudy and I took the music box from the bag. I closely inspected it to see if there was something valuable about it.
Rudy then pressed a button which opened a secret compartment. Inside, was a small key which looked like it belonged to some safety locker. There was also a slip of paper which contained a bank name and an account number.
The following day I tracked down the bank’s location, and got the safety locker opened. There was small pouch inside.
It was full of diamonds.