Chapter 5d
The cloud over the sun was only darkening. Despite this, I seemed to be seeing much more clearly. I could see the man looming over my shoulder. He was older and darker. I could not make him out but he looked familiar. He looked very familiar, even though I could hardly make out his form, and he was watching me.
The guy I sold the potatoes to, maybe? The clerk from the 7/11? Maybe one of the creepers from the back of Lenny's Video Shoppe?
Hard to say. I asked Cindy who he was. She didn't see anybody. Neither did I. I looked again, closer, longer, and saw nobody. I saw that nobody had been there. I saw the invisible footprints of an illusion. I felt all of that but I also felt him watching me or at least watching for me.
I wasn't talking to Cindy, just thinking aloud where he might have gone. She said, "I guess he left."
I said, "You can't move away from here, only deeper in."
She said, "Maybe he just forgot where he was, then."
Or maybe he went deeper in. It was that moment I knew decisions were unavoidable. Follow the hunter deeper in, maybe getting lost in the process, or wait here for him to find me? I would have to search for myself as thoroughly as the unknown was to know the answer.
She said, "Transit umbra, lux permanet."
"Good point," I told her, "but what the fuck are you talking about?"
I exited the bathroom and went back to the bar.
Somewhere there was a person looking for me, maybe even finding me. I could feel it, the sensation of being hunted like a wild beast, but couldn't see the traps.
Obtained key 2  |
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