The gangs had been cooped up inside most of the previous ten days. El Nino storms came through one after another. Maybe they wouldn’t drown or freeze you, but they were cold, wet, and miserable – at least by the standards of California weather. Nobody came out when it was raining without a good reason why they had to be out there and then, but once it stopped a light jacket would keep you warm, and the hoodies would be out looking to burn off some energy. It’s not like they had anything better to do.
And here I was, a 28 year old woman leaving the building all by myself in the dark just after eight-thirty with no one around. Just bad luck the four guys in jackets walking up the other side of the street at the exact wrong time. No key to get back in – damn “Call me George” to hell. I picked up my pace. If I could get to my car – beater that it is – and lock the doors there was a chance I’d be able to drive away.
Mistake. The hoodies started to run. Now there was some effort in it for them, things were looking worse for me. Cell phone, you say? I could grab the phone and push the number to dial 911, but it wouldn’t do me a bit of good. Typical response time was thirty minutes. By the time the cops showed up, it would be long over. I was about to do it anyway when it happened.
I swear on my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that this happened. He looked like an Angel of the Lord, minus the wings. Hanging up there in the air. Well, not hanging – he was falling, though not like he was getting pulled – more like he was riding an escalator that wasn’t there. At least six five, thin as a rail, with a softly glowing sword of all the improbable things. Wearing what looked like some kind of uniform, dark with lighter trim, cut like nothing I’d ever seen.
I don’t know what he did to call attention to himself, but all of a sudden the ‘bangers noticed him. Not just the ‘bangers, but everything’s attention was wrenched towards him as if someone grabbed our heads, sunk hooks into our eyeballs and made us look. Right down to the rats in the dumpsters.
That was enough for the ‘bangers. They hauled out their guns and started banging away. The visitor looked puzzled for an instant, then the sword vanished, and I saw a flash from him. Something in his hand – didn’t did get a good look at what it was. The gang members fell over so fast it was over before I could twitch. Damn! The guy was fast. I’d never seen anything like that even in the movies.
One look showed four lifeless bodies with blood starting to pool. The visitor lit with catlike grace, apparently as unconcerned as if nothing had just happened. I had a decision to make, and I did. I jumped in my car and got the hell out of Dodge. I didn’t want to be anywhere in the neighborhood when the cops finally got there. I didn’t stop to say thanks, I definitely didn’t talk to him, I just jumped in and went. I didn’t slow down until I was home. I might have run a red light or two; I really couldn’t tell you with any certainty.
I pulled into the parking lot, and spent a few minutes having a quiet attack of the shakes. The steering wheel was a nice solid reassurance of the familiar world of everyday life. Things like that just did not happen. Bad enough to come that close to being raped or maybe worse. I lived in the real world, and things like that happened even though you don’t want them to. But you do not get six and a half feet of impossibly fast man walking down out of the sky to kill your enemies every day, or any day. Maybe in fairy tales or fiction, not in Riverside.
It was close to nine-thirty by the time I pulled myself together enough to get out of the car. I locked the door of the old blue Hyundai and walked through the gate, up to my door, went in and locked the door, then collapsed into my old vinyl chair – just in time to see him step into my field of vision. Where the hell did he come from, how the fuck did he do that? I’m sorry, my Mama raised a lady, words like that did not come out of my mouth, but they definitely went through my mind that time. I started out of the chair, then caught his gaze and froze. As in could not move, gazing into those eyes. I don’t know how long – but it felt like an eternity.
In the light, I could see he was dressed in a deep sapphire blue with golden trim, a few pieces of decoration I didn’t understand here and there – not any military uniforms I’d seen, or police, but of that nature. He himself looked like nothing I’d ever seen. His skin color was a deep bronze – If I had to guess based on that, I would have said “Cuban” because most of them have some black ancestry, and his hair was that dark brown shade of almost black of many hispanics, but his facial structure was pure north European aristocrat – aquiline nose, hawk sharp face. The rest of his body was even thinner, if that made sense, and just as tall as I’d thought at first. At five-four, I barely came up to chest high on him. Obviously greyhound fit, though. I’d expect to see someone like him at the Olympics on TV, pole-vaulting or maybe running hurdles, not killing gang members on the side of a nondescript office building in Riverside, the armpit of Southern California. His eyes? They were steel grey, unlike anything else I had ever seen, and just as hard as that implies. Not unwelcoming to me, personally, at that moment, but I got the impression he would have no difficulty staring down the entire world if he thought it necessary. Age? Outside the eyes, he looked younger than me – I’d guess 25, or maybe younger. He was a young vibrant powerful man, not a boy. The eyes were older – way older.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a completely normal California anglo accent, not a trace of anything else. It broke the spell holding me in place, and I started to scream at him in my parents’ native Spanish. I got about half a word out before he made a gesture of peace, in an unhurried way but just as fast as I’d seen back in the parking lot, “As you have probably figured out, I’m from a long way away. I’d hoped to get my business taken care of and leave, but I managed to miss the people I came to see.” And then I noticed – or should I say realized that I had noticed that his lips weren’t moving and I wasn’t actually hearing him with my ears, only in my head.
Copyright 2013 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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