My Multiverse Trip 122 122. Stranger Danger

I started to realize, as I crossed another road, that I was going the wrong direction. The little foot traffic I had seen was going north, and it looked like the buildings here were mostly warehouses. I decided to turn east at the next corner, and then loop around after a few blocks and try my luck on a different street on my way back to the boardwalk.

A group of four men turned around the corner I was heading for, dressed too casually to be heading home from the office, but they were too grimy to be tourists. As they approached me, I realized they weren't too many years older than I was. They were joking loudly among themselves, laughing raucously and punching each other's arms. I scooted as far to the inside of the sidewalk as I could to give them room, walking swiftly, looking past them to the corner. I forgot about this and knew what was going to happen was either robbery or ****.

"Hey, there!" (s.h.i.+t it was ****! I knew it I'm too handsome!) one of them called as they pa.s.sed, and he had to be talking to me since no one else was around. I glanced up automatically. Two of them had paused, the other two were slowing. The closest, a heavyset, dark-haired man in his early twenties, seemed to be the one who had spoken. He was wearing a flannel s.h.i.+rt open over a dirty t-s.h.i.+rt, cut-off jeans, and sandals. He took half a step toward me.

"h.e.l.lo," I said, a knee-jerk reaction. Then I quickly put my hands in my pockets taking out two throwing knives from the gate and sliding them in my hands and started to walk away. I walked faster toward the corner. I could hear them laughing at full volume behind me. The instant someone goes for me I'm going to go straight for the throat and store the dead bodies right in the inventory no one's getting my booty virginity not today satan.

"Hey, wait!" one of them called after me again, but I kept my head down and rounded the corner with a sigh of relief. I could still hear them chortling behind me.

I found myself on a sidewalk leading past the backs of several somber-colored warehouses, each with large bay doors for unloading trucks, padlocked for the night. The south side of the street had no sidewalk, only a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire protecting some kind of engine parts storage yard. I'd wandered far past the part of Port Angeles that I, as a guest, was intended to see. It was getting dark, I realized, the clouds finally returning, piling up on the western horizon, creating an early sunset. The eastern sky was still clear, but graying, shot through with streaks of pink and orange. I'd left my jacket in the car, and a sudden s.h.i.+ver made me cross my arms tightly across my chest. A single van pa.s.sed me, and then the road was empty.

The sky suddenly darkened further, and, as I looked over my shoulder to glare at the offending cloud, I realized with a shock that two men were walking quietly twenty feet behind me. s.h.i.+t it really was ****! My eyes narrowed as I gripped my vibranium throwing knives tighter I must protect my booty.

I listened intently to their quiet footsteps, which were much too quiet when compared to the boisterous noise they'd been making earlier, and it didn't sound like they were speeding up, or getting any closer to me.

It seemed to take forever for me to get to the corner. I kept my pace steady, the men behind me falling ever so slightly farther behind with every step. I saw two cars going north pa.s.s the intersection I was heading for, and I exhaled in relief. There would be more people around once I got off this deserted street and wouldn't have to resort to murder. I walked around the corner with a grateful sigh.

And skidded to a stop.

The street was lined on both sides by blank, doorless, windowless walls. I could see in the distance, two intersections down, streetlamps, cars, and more pedestrians, but they were all too far away. Because lounging against the western building, midway down the street, were the other two men from the group, both watching with excited smiles as I froze dead on the sidewalk. I realized then that I wasn't being followed. well s.h.i.+t.

"I advise you f.u.c.k off" I warned

"Don't be like that, sugar," he called. confirmed it wasn't a robbery slaughter allowed.