The Night Pursuit

The Night Pursuit

by R.S. Cartier

We think we know what happens between the time we close our eyes,

 and the time we wake up in the morning. 

We couldn’t have been more wrong.

It was 10:59 pm on the timeclock at Ray’s Pizza, when an exhausted Dameer Jackson stared intently at its white analog numbers, timecard in hand, wondering why in his mind, more than sixty seconds had already passed.

“Go ahead,” muttered the gruff voice of his boss, who also doubled as the diner’s cook, chef hat, and all. “Plus I know your train leaves the transportation hub in four minutes.

“I can make it,” Dameer says convincingly with the slightest of smiles. “I always do!”

A text alert comes through Dameer’s phone. He hesitantly looks down, knowing that the subject of the text he’s expecting, won’t be of a nature he’s looking forward.

<I can’t believe what you did that shit Dameer!> - Romona 

Dameer quickly tucks the phone back in his pocket.

With the tiniest of clicks, the timeclock updates itself to 11:00 pm11:00pm.

Dameer’s smile widens as he slams his timecard into the slot of the timeclock, waits for the time punch, and looks up at his boss with a smile, “I’m OUT!”

“See ya tomorrow, playa! Be careful on your way home, the streets are getting worse out there, especially late.”

Dameer pauses at the door for a moment, flipping the sign in the front window to show that Ray’s PIzza was closed, before looking back at  his boss, “Nobody wants that problem, peace!”  Ducking under the bell attached to the top of the door that alerts staff of visitors, Dameer disappears from Ray’s field of vision.

Dameer hits the street at a brisk pace, his visible exhalations reminding him how much the temperature had dipped since he started work eight hours ago. Checking his watch, he knows he has just four minutes to make his train two blocks away. Taking long strides as he moves, he clears the first block in forty-five seconds. From his vantage point, he can see the right side of the train on the elevated tracks above him on its departure berth. At his current pace, he’d easily make his train, like he always did, while having more than enough time to pick a seat in a car by himself.  

On the next block, all the stores had already closed an hour earlier than Ray's Diner, so Dameer couldn't help but notice across the street on his left, a figure attired in all-dark clothing standing outside Evening Coffee Shoppe. Dameer's eyes stayed glued to the figure, all the way to the moment where he found himself directly across the street from the man. Dameer was ready to chalk up this as an odd occurrence, even with the individual whose face was obscured, turned to follow him. That all changed when the dark figure suddenly began to walk in his direction.

Halfway up the street, Dameer crossed over at the same point where he always crossed every night to access the transportation center. The only difference this time was that someone shared the same side of the street as he did and that someone was getting closer. 

Dameer had too much pride to fully turn around to see if he was getting pursued, instead, he kept his eyes focused on the glass storefronts of passing businesses, concluding what he already knew—the figure was getting closer. Dameer, having spent his entire life in the city, knew what was going to happen next. He turned around just in time to absorb the full impact of the figure. Dameer landed on his back hard, the air in his lungs leaping out all at once. Before he could have a chance to think, a chorus of punches began raining down on him from above. Breathless and confused, Dameer tried to block the incoming assault, but every time he’d try to protect one part of his face, his attacker’s blow found their mark, despite the dark street providing minimal lighting.

 Dameer felt as though he was seconds away from joining a sleep that he may never recover from, when his instinct of survival kicked in, allowing him to finally go on the offensive. Dameer grabbed his attacker by both shoulders, throwing him towards the navy blue pickup to his left. Dameer was on his feet in seconds trying to shake off the fog of his beating. He looked at the train stationed above him, before looking at his watch, quickly concluding he had less than a minute before the train departed.

“Was this worth it, dawg?” Dameer grunted at his attacker who was struggling to right himself from the ground. 

Once upright, his attacker didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he launched himself at Dameer like the very train Dameer hoped to be catching. With time not on his side, Dameer knew he had only one chance. As his attacker came at him, Dameer put everything he had into an overhand right punch. It ended up being the most perfect punch Dameer had ever thrown in his life. It caught his attacker at the very extent of his reach, detonating off the side of his jaw with a thundering blow that resounded off the walls of a dark street like someone slamming a large, raw steak against the ground. The back of his attacker’s head hit the ground before any other part of his body did. Dameer wanted to straddle his fallen foe and give him the same medicine he himself was given, but he knew he had just moments to make his move.

“Fuck this, I’m making my train!” Dameer screamed in his head, before making for the doors of the transportation center. Skipping several steps at a time, Dameer is at the top of the stairwell in less than ten seconds. He swipes his transit card at the automatic doors sensor, which quickly part and allow him entrance.  

The lone attendant nodded his head while giving him a witty smirk, “Cuttin it kinda close this time young fella! By the way, you look like shit!” 

Dameer doesn’t even answer, instead picks up his pace to the awaiting open doors of the five-car train. He enters the train, walking through two cars before he finally sits down, releasing a heavy sigh. Moving his tongue around his mouth, he cringes at the putrid taste of copper and iron that is switching around in his mouth. “What the fuck just happened back there?” Dameer thought, blinking heavily through the perspiration of tears that run from his forehead. When he takes an extra moment to think, scratching is head at the right temple. That’s when it hits him, “DUH!”

Dameer pulls out his cell phone and begins hammering away at his messenger app, <Ramona, I can’t believe you sent somebody after me.  I’m getting a hold of the police when I get home.>

 He immediately closes his phone. Stretching his body out along several seats, Dameer knows that he’s going to have several bruises and contusions about his upper body.  Physically spent by the fight, he wants to go to sleep so badly, but he knows that with seven stops to go, he doesn’t want to miss his stop.

His eyes getting heavy, Dameer mumbles, “Just need a second to…”

Trying his best to stay awake, Dameer closes his eyes for a moment, only to be awakened to the sound of the door to his passenger car open—then close. Dameer looks up, blinking heavily as he tries his best to come to grips with what he was looking at. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dameer says under his breath through gritted teeth.

The figure that Dameer just bested just a few minutes ago, somehow not only miraculously made the train, presumingly at the last second. The attacker from before had now entered his car looking no worse for wear. Dameer looked up at the man, hoping to get a better look at him on the well-lit train. Unfortunately for Dameer, the hood that covered his attacker’s head was just big enough, that his face was totally obscured from sight.  

“WHO ARE YOU?” Dameer demanded as he stood, widening his shoulders in an attempt to make himself look even more sizable than he already was. Once again, the attacker didn’t answer verbally, and like last time, let his fists do his talking. Still hurting from the first attack, Dameer was somehow able to dodge the first two punches. When the third landed, the punch was so violent, it threw Dameer back to the seat he had just risen from. In Dameer's mind, he had never been hit so violently in his life.

 Resting on one arm of the seat, Dameer tried to ward off the next attack with his left waiving in surrender, “WAIT! Tell Ramona I’m sorry!”

The attacker came at Dameer like a missile, narrowly missing the side of his jaw by less than an inch when he pivoted at the last second. Dameer's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as the attacker's errant blow tore through the molded plastic seat, absorbing his arm all the way to the shoulder. Dameer wanted to run, but there was only one car left to flee too. The next stop wasn't for another minute or so. With this sudden elevation of attack, he was afraid between the two of them, he was going to be the one who didn't make it. Dameer knew what he had to do. 

Dameer leaped on the attacker's back wrapping his right arm around his neck with all his might. With only one free arm, his attacker tried to fend him off, but Dameer's hold on him wasn't going to be broken by a one-armed man. It took almost a full minute for the attacker to cease his struggle, his body going limp in Dameer's clutches. It wasn't till Dameer stood up did he realize that his heart was pounding loudly in his chest. He pulled out his phone to call the police but wondered how he could explain where this unknown attacker's presence was and why he didn't flee when he had a chance. When his stop came, Dameer walked off the train calmly, trying not to show any sign that he just finished fighting for his life.

After exiting the train, Dameer didn't pick up his pace until he was a full two blocks away. A block away after that, he could see the light of his apartment window. "I can put this terrible night behind me… if I can just make it home," he thought.

 Two minutes later, Dameer entered his apartment, crashing down on his knees onto the padded carpet. His phone alerted him to a sound of an incoming text, but he's so sore, he didn’t even reach for it. Skipping his usual shower before bed, Dameer heads right for his bed, only removing his shoes before crawling on top of his properly made bed.

As bad as Dameer wanted to put the night behind him, he wanted to check his phone before going to sleep. Waking his phone up, his eyes narrowed on the message response from Ramona.

<I just saw your message. Look Dameer, nobody got time to be sending people after you. You aren’t that damned special! If If you're getting into it with somebody, ya better look into the mirror for the cause!> - Ramona.

Dameer’s heart dropped, as his mind tried to ascertain who that person was who attacked him multiple times. “The good thing is…” Dameer concluded as his eyes slowly shut. “I don’t have to worry about whomever it was bothering me ever again.”

Minutes later, Dameer was just about to enter R.E.M., when the sound of his front door exploding inward woke him from his slumber.  Dameer tried to sprint into an offensive, but his attacker, the very same attacker from earlier, had already been seized by his neck by his attacker’s iron right hand. Even with his two hands free, Dameer was unable to break his attacker’s grip that only continued to tighten. He twisted, he kicked, he clawed, but all Dameer’s efforts to free himself were all in vain as his strength continued to wane incrementally. Inside his mind, Dameer pleaded forgiveness for grievances he didn’t know he’d committed. But to the outside world, no words came forth from his collapsing larynx. As Dameer’s vision dimmed, culminating in the last seconds of his young life, his attacker used his free hand to pull back his hoodie, allowing Dameer to finally see who his attacker was.

In this last moment of surprise, before he passed on, Dameer locked eyes onto no other than the very face of himself.

His doppelganger leaned inward, stopping just inches away from his face, “You fought well tonight Dameer. Probably just as well as the version of the past you put down last night. I can only hope… that I fight as well and honorable as you did when it's my turn tomorrow tonight.”

Tomorrow’s Dameer lifted the body of today’s Dameer off the bed, effortlessly tossing him onto the floor as his body slowly began to corporally dissipate. In the body groove that today’s Dameer’s body just occupied, tomorrow’s fit perfectly for the man that by the time he wakes up in six hours, will only have knowledge of only one Dameer—himself. This, of course, will change later that night, as it changes for every soul on the planet, as they try their best to fight off tomorrow. But as sure as we know the sun will rise to bring on the day, tomorrow will always win the night.

The End.