Revenants

        “That’ll be $5.89, sir.”

I gave the cashier at ten dollar bill, quickly telling him to keep the change before grabbing my hot dog and walking away from the strong smell of smoke and grease into the hustling crowd of people walking along the concrete. It didn’t matter if they were a walking suit and tie or just a mundane tourist; no one paid any mind to me holding something that would probably give me a heart attack in a decade. I wasn’t too far from my forties now, and aside from a few occasional migraines and a physical inability to whistle or burp, I didn’t have too much to complain about. Even living here in Hell’s Kitchen, I lived a quiet life. I wasn’t too far from the fast pace and bright lights of Times Square, so I regularly went to dine out, go to a show, or just window shop. Then when I’ve had my fun, I go back to the seedier but relatively quieter district of Hell’s Kitchen. My apartment was small, and had a leaky faucet, but it blocks out the noise of the city, so I sleep well at night. Which is something else I’ll miss being able to do ten years from now.

But even though it was nearing midnight in the big city, I wasn’t going home quite yet. I instead crossed the street, passing by a near perfect row of yellow cabs, and made my way towards Central Park. Most people stay away from the park at night, given all the horror stories that surround it. I personally find it alluring to be alone in nature during the night, no matter what might be hiding in the shadows. I’m a big boy, I’ve learned self-defense, and I have a thorough understanding of disarming any would-be ne’er-do-wells. I’ll be fine eating alone in Central Park at night. And that was exactly what I planned to do.

I passed by a few drunken stragglers mumbling about the end times, which happened to include very descriptive epithets about fire and brimstone, and found a bench close enough to a thin scarlet oak tree where I could sit and eat my heart-attack-on-a-bun in peace. Nothing says peace and tranquility like a grease stroke in the middle of Central Park, right?

Having finished what passed for a midnight snack, I placed my used napkins inside of my pocket to properly dispose of later. I’m not about killing the Earth, even if Central Park is the last place people would think to be environmentally conscious. I ran my finger through my beard, admittedly scruffier in the last few days than I would like, to swipe out any leftover crumbs that may have been caught in between my beard hairs. And even though it was the middle of fall, I had discarded of the heavy beige jacket I had been wearing most of the day, flinging it over my shoulder as I started to walk back the path I had taken before.

  “Ashton.”

I froze in my footsteps hearing my name. The voice that spoke my name wasn’t particularly gruff or even scary. It was rather soft and raspy, like the elderly uncle at a family reunion who practically breathes his rancid whiskey breath on your face when talking too closely. The voice itself didn’t spook me; it was the fact that the last time I heard this voice, I was pretty sure would be the last time. If I were back in the heart of the city, another nameless face in a crowd, I’d just believe I was hearing things, or that some desperate scam artist on the street was about to hit me up for all the money I’m worth. Which isn’t a lot, to be quite frank. But out here alone in Central Park? That couldn’t be a coincidence. With a chill down my spine and a cold sweat running down my brow, I turned my head to look behind me…

…and no one was there. No one.

My mind must be playing tricks on me. That had to be it. I did have a long day, so maybe I just needed rest. Assured that nothing and no one was out for me, I kept following the path through Central Park back to the city.

Once I saw the familiar street lights through empty spaces between the trees, I felt more at ease knowing I’d be around other people soon. That was the comfort of living in the big city. People mistakenly believe that, when you want to live your life as an unknown, you go to a small town and keep to yourself. But people in small towns know each other too well. They practically have eyes (and ears) in the back of their heads, and can pick out a stranger like a sore thumb. Then come the questions and the probing, followed by the typical small town gossip that spreads like wildfire, and suddenly all eyes are on you. When you really want to remain unknown, you go to the big city and slip into the crowds. In a city filled with millions, no one would notice one more. Maybe the city does have constant surveillance and a big hand in technology and social media, but finding one person out of millions is much more difficult than finding one in a few hundred, or even a few thousand. That was why, despite the increased crime rates and the rent being too damn high, I always felt safe living in New York City.

“Ashton!”

Until now.

This time, I knew I wasn’t hearing things. I had casually been walking along the sidewalk. Now I was power walking over the crosswalk to the street filled with the darkness of closed department stores. City that never sleeps, my ass. I saw lines of people walking the city streets just a block down, so I could probably slip in with…

“Turn around and face me, Ashton!”

I stopped dead in my tracks, letting the cool breeze flow past me as I accepted the fact that this time, I couldn’t outrun him. And judging by the rising volume of his voice, he was done asking nicely. It wasn’t so soft anymore. I didn’t make it to the crowd. Right here, at this spot in this moment of time, it was just the two of us. Just like the last time I saw him. Which was, again, supposed to be the last time. Inhaling deeply and letting out a soft sigh, I turned around.

I thought he was dead, but here he is, right in front of me on the street, smiling at me. Not a real smile, though. A shaky, unhinged smile showing off the canines of his teeth, the kind that comes with being mad in the head. My old friend. My brother-in-arms. And now, my worst fear come back to life.

“That’s all I get?” he asked in his lunacy, “The cold shoulder? I’m hurt.”

“Aiden…”

Aiden Cole. An old war buddy from the Iraq War. The last time I saw him, he had been crushed under a mountain of rubble in Karbala, desperate stretching out his bloody hand towards me to pull him out. I still remember the sounds of gunfire from that night, not at all far from where the two of us were. He used to be quite handsome, platonically speaking, and could probably bag any woman he came across. And I mean any woman, even if they aided and abetted the enemy. Now he had rough stubble all over his face, a broken nose, a long scar across his left eye (which also appeared to be a glass eye by this point), and a prosthetic leg. He wore the same plain clothes as me, baggy pants with a short sleeve shirt that showed off our matching tattoos of bulldogs on our forearms.

“Bet you’re surprised to see me here, Ashton,” Aiden said, with a soft and unnerving laugh.

“…that’s a mild way of putting it,” I replied tensely, “I thought…you were…”

“That I was dead?” Aiden asked, “No…I just spent a long time in the hospital…and even longer in rehab. Both times they kept poisoning me with meds that just messed me up even more.”

“Yikes,” I said, slowly moving one leg backwards, followed by the other, “I’m sorry to hear that…”

I guess it was too much to ask that Aiden didn’t catch on to the fact I was trying to get away from him. But he did, and judging by the fact he pulled a gun out on me, aiming it perfectly centered between my eyes despite his clear lunacy, I’d say he didn’t take too kindly to me trying to walk away from our conversation.

“Uh-uh,” Aiden said gruffly, “You don’t get to do what you did and just walk away.”

“Whoa, you are way out of line here,” I said to him.

“DON’T. MOVE.”

I stayed exactly where I was as he angrily approached me, the barrel of the gun still aimed directly between my eyes. His eyes were wide with fury, and even as he began circling around me like a predator trapping its prey, I still felt his eyes burning into me, desperate for retribution.

“Guess you didn’t expect this shit to come back to you living the good life, eh?” Aiden asked.

“The good life? I live on disability checks which barely cover my expenses. I’m not exactly swimming in gold at the Taj Mahal.”

“You lived. You got to go home. No one ever knew what you did.”

“If I recall,” I told him sternly, “You were there right alongside with me.”

“I didn’t ENJOY it,” he growled at me.

“And you think I did?” I retorted, “It was us…or them.”

“They didn’t have to die!” he exclaimed as his hands started trembling.

“That’s war, Aiden. Tough choices had to be made. Sacrifices.”

“They were kids, man!”

“They were soldiers. Wasn’t their fault…but they didn’t give us much of a choice either.”

“We weren’t on the field, Ashton,” Aiden said, reprimanding me.

All this time, I barely blinked, even with Aiden circling me like a hawk. I had quickly learned in my early years of service that panicking and rash action caused more problems than it solved. Remaining calm and in control was the key to decisive action. I may have feared the day my past came back to haunt me, but there was nothing Aiden could do to me that I would not be ready to face. I just needed to wait for an opening.

“Everything I have done,” I said to him, “Everything we have done…together…was in the service of our country.”

“I still remember all of it,” Aiden said, his voice trembling just from the memories, “The night we ambushed them. I remember their screams. The way they begged us to stop.”

“They had just spent the day shooting at us first,” I said without emotion in my voice.

“I remember the tears on their faces,” Aiden continued, ignoring what I had just told him, “As they watched us slaughtering their peers. Their friends. And the blood…so…so much blood…”

Is he done telling me things I already know about that night?

“And I remember your face…”

Apparently not.

“The way you looked down on them as you shot them to death,” Aiden continued, “We…the rest of us…we were scared, man. We were terrified. Trevor couldn’t even look at the bodies. Nick vomited out the window after we were all done. I kept trying to wipe the blood off of me.”

He stopped circling me and was right back in front of me, but rather than aiming the gun between my eyes, he aimed for my forehead, and not very well. The trembling of his hands made for a shaky gun.

“You? You didn’t even blink. You just stared at them, watching them die, pulling the trigger like it was nothing to you.”

“Do you have a point?” I asked.

“My POINT?” he cried out, “MY POINT? You got away with MURDER!”

“The rules are out the window in times of war,” I said to him, “You know this.”

“And if that wasn’t enough…you left us to DIE!” he screamed, “Trevor, Nick, all of them…shot to pieces just days later…and when that bomb went off in the house…when I was trapped underneath the wreckage…when I cried out to you…when I BEGGED you to help me…you ran away like a goddamn COWARD! You left us to DIE so you could get away with what you did!”

“That’s not how it happened,” I firmly told him, “Your story is all mixed up.”

“You know what’s all mixed up?” Aiden angrily asked, “The fact that I spent years from hospitals to rehab facilities to get treated for the shit you caused…and you’re just waltzing along carefree and stuffing your face like you’re not a goddamn MURDERER!”

“Is that why you’ve come back?” I asked him, “After all this time, all these years, you could have lived quietly just like me…and you choose to hunt me down and make empty threats over…”

“They’re not threats, Ashton,” he said, moving his face close enough that I can feel his breath moving past my face, “It…is JUSTICE”

And that was it. That was how he slipped up. The one opening I needed to put an end to this charade.  At the slightest twitch of his hand, I slapped his fist out of my face, thereby removing the barrel of the gun from the range of my face, while my left hand jabbed his throat, knocking the wind out of him. I expected a little more of a fight from him, but apparently being constantly drugged up for over a decade made him weak. He immediately dropped his firearm to the hard city street as he grabbed his chest to catch his breath.

This is the part where most people would either run away or kick away the firearm. I, instead, knelt down and picked it up myself. The few who would also reach this point would make a thinly veiled threat to their attacker not to bother them ever again. But I wasn’t about making threats. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. If I were to let him go now, I would not be assured he would not come back and try this again.

It was like Karbala again, staring down my enemy without even blinking, making a tough but necessary choice in order to survive. I guess Aiden isn’t the only one having flashbacks tonight. I look at Aiden and I’m seeing that same little boy who, hours before his death, had been firing a gun at me in the middle of the desert. Then I’m seeing Aiden’s face again. Somehow, pulling the trigger today was even harder than it was in Karbala. But I do anyway. He doesn’t cry and beg like the Karbala kids do. He almost looked like he accepted his fate, losing the fire in his belly and the anger in his eyes, as if in his final moment, he wanted me to pull the trigger. And as quickly as I did, he fell lifelessly onto the cold city street, blood trickling out of his head and staining the crosswalk.

After putting the safety on, I placed the gun in my pocket, and put my jacket back on so that it would cover the grip completely. I turned my head both ways. No witnesses. The crowd to my back was completely undisturbed by the sound of a gunshot.

Without looking back at Aiden’s lifeless body, I walked towards the crowd to blend in once again, leaving the last revenants of my past on the street.