Chapter 3
The next thing I remember is Garrison standing over me with a worried expression on his face. He cast his shadow over me and hid me from the bright ceiling lights. It must have still been night, but how late I couldn't tell. I tried to sit up, but he held me down. "Easy there, you've got a good bump on your head." I felt what he meant when a throbbing pain pounded into my head from the egg-size bump on the back of my noggin.
"Ouch..." I murmured.
Garrison slipped a pillow beneath my head. "I've called the cops, but it looks like whoever came in here and attacked the place left in a hurry." That reminded me of the gang members and that hulking shadow, and I whipped my head to the left and right. The place was a mess with machines torn from the walls and coins everywhere, but there wasn't a sign of any of the guys or the shadow thing. All that whipping gave me whiplash, and made my head hurt worse. "Don't go moving too fast," Garrison warned me. "Did you want any water?"
"N-no, I'm okay. Just let me sit up." He hefted me up so I sat with my back against one of the washers. It was the one that had held my laundry, though not anymore. My shirts, pants and underwear were strewn throughout the room, including on me.
Garrison picked a pair of underwear off my shoulder and plopped it on the ground. "Do you remember anything about what happened here?"
I shook my head, and I winced when that caused more pain to shoot through my skull. "There was this group of guys, some of the Green Bandanna gang, and they smashed up the machines. They found me hiding and held me down on the floor-" I shuddered when I recalled what they were going to do.
"Skip that part. What happened next?" Garrison asked me.
"Then the lights went out and somebody kept sneaking out of the dark and grabbing them. I got out of the way when they shot at him, but whoever it was must have been wearing a bullet proof vest or something because he ran into them and threw them everywhere." I glanced up and noticed the flimsy ceiling tiles were broken from the impact of a human body.
Garrison followed my eyes, and raised an eyebrow. "Even up there?" he guessed.
"Must have. I guess the guy may have chased them out of here when they were done."
"I'm not sure that's quite what happened," Garrison hesitantly argued.
I frowned. "Why?"
"Let me show you something." Garrison helped me to my feet and turned me around so I faced the exterior wall. All the windows were broken out and there were drops of blood on the shards around the sills. "They must have been really desperate to get out." He tilted his head to one side and frowned. "The police are finally coming." I listened, and sure enough there were police sirens coming down the street. "Come on, let's get you into my apartment so you can sit down on something warm. That floor can't be comfortable."
Garrison helped me into his apartment and set me back in the kitchen chair. His place was long and narrow like the laundry room, but it went back farther toward the stairwell where there were a few rooms partitioned off from the kitchen and living room. I assumed those were bedrooms and bath. Before he left to answer the knocking of the police at the front door he tossed me a shirt from his bedroom. "You might need that," he told me and left the room.
I glanced down at myself and was reminded that I only had my bra on. Even that was slightly askew, reveling more of my breasts than I cared to share with the world. I yelped and slipped into the shirt. Garrison was soon back down with four cops, three of which went to the laundry room and one of them followed Garrison back to his apartment to talk to me. The cop introduced himself as Officer Cranston.
"Mr. Garrison here tells us you were in some sort of a fight," Officer Cranston assumed. "Did you need medical attention?"
I shook my head. "I'm fine, just a bump on the head, but I wasn't really in the fight. I just kind of watched it."
"Can you describe to me what happened?" I described as best I could the happenings of the evening, and he jotted everything down in his book. "And how long would you say you were out?"
"I don't know. What time is it?"
"Almost eight," Garrison spoke up. "I heard some noises in the laundry room and when I flicked on the light I found Miss Taylor on the ground."
"You let us in through the front door, Mr. Garrison. How do you think these other fellows got inside?" Cranston wondered.
Garrison shrugged. "They could have a key, or maybe they picked the lock."
"Or they have a room here," I suggested. "One of the guys did look kind of familiar."
"What about this mystery shadow man? What did you see of him?" Cranston asked me.
I shook my head. "Not much except that he stood six feet tall and had some yellow eyes."
"Yellow eyes?" Cranston repeated in disbelief.
"Yellow eyes," I reaffirmed with a frown.
Another officer came into the apartment, and Cranston turned to him. "Well, Perkins?"
Perkins shook his head. "It's a real mess in there, sir. Lots of blood and damage, but no sign of where they went or who they were," Perkins told him.
Officer Cranston glanced over to Garrison. "We'll have to seal off the room for a few days to gather evidence."
Garrison smirked. "There won't be much use looking for fingerprints. I clean that place pretty often but too many people use it."
"It's the blood we're after. Hopefully we'll be able to trace the crooks and the fellow who beat them up."
Garrison raised an eyebrow. "The fellow? Why him?"
"To thank him for doing this neighborhood a favor and tell him he should watch his back. The Green Bandannas aren't going to let him get away with his life if they can help it." Cranston turned to me. "I'll have to warn you to watch your back, too, Miss Taylor. If word gets out that you know who beat them up, the Bandannas are going to go after you to find out what you know."
Garrison stood behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. "I'll keep an eye out for her," he offered.
Cranston looked the skinny nerd up and down, and smiled. "Are you sure? These guys are pretty tough. If you feel threatened by any strange noises or men, Miss Taylor, don't hesitate to call us."
I nodded and promised myself I'd put 911 on speed dial. "Sure thing." The cops left to seal off the laundry room and I slumped back in my chair. "Just great. I go to clean some messy laundry and end up getting into a bigger mess with the Bandanna gang."
Garrison patted me on the shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be all right."
I oozed over the table and stuffed my head into my folded arms. "Only if my guardian angel with yellow eyes keeps looking out for me," I muttered.
Garrison slipped into his seat and had a peculiar smile on his face. "What if I told you that your guardian angel was looking out for you right now?"
I lifted my head and frowned. "I'd say I have an invisible stalker."
He chuckled. "Invisible except when someone needs their sink fixed or a light bulb changed."
"Um, I'm not following you."
"What if I told you I'm your guardian angel?"
I looked him up and down. He didn't look like the six-foot shadow I saw earlier. "Growth spurt?" I asked him.
Now it was his turn to be bewildered. "Pardon?"
"You're not exactly tall, and that guy I saw was tossing those gang members like they were footballs."
Garrison stood up and flexed his wimpy arm muscles. "You don't think this could throw someone ten feet?"
"Maybe if you had a giant slingshot," I teased.
He sighed and shrugged. "You can't blame a guy for trying to win a girl's affections."
"Yes I can, but I'll forgive you for your lying." I stood up and wobbled on my feet. He scurried around the table and kept my rubber legs from buckling beneath me.
"Wouldn't you rather stay here for the night? I can take the couch," he offered.
I shook my head. "I'd rather be in my own bed, but if you could help me up the stairs that would be great."
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"All right. Just lean on me and we'll get going." Garrison showed more strength than I gave him credit for as he hefted me down the basement hall and upstairs to the lobby. The staircase was a winding snake of wooden steps in a narrow shaft. When you stood at the top you could look straight down to the lobby. At the bottom of the stairs Garrison paused and looked up.
"It's times like these I wish this place had an elevator," I muttered.
"That would be convenient."
"Which explains why one isn't in this place."
"I suppose there's only one thing we can do."
"Build an escalator?" I suggested.
"No, this." He swooped me into his arms and stepped up the stairs. I clung onto his thin frame and was surprised to find there was some muscle underneath those dorky clothes.
"Could you have warned me before you did that?" I snapped at him.
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Don't you like surprises?"
"No!"
"I'm afraid I have another one for you."
"What now?"
"We're here." During our little discussion he'd hurried up four flights of stairs to my floor. I was so surprised my mouth dropped down to the lobby. He set me down on the floor and I stared at him in disbelief.
"How did you do that?" I asked him.
He shrugged. "One foot in front of the other."
"But at what? The speed of internet?"
"Maybe you just weren't paying attention."
"Because you were distracting me."
"Maybe I used my slingshot," he teased as he led me to my room. He had all the keys and mine was under impound in the laundry room, so he unlocked the door and let me inside.
"Maybe you're full of bullshit."
"I prefer the term cow manure."
I rolled my eyes and nodded at a chair in front of my television. "Just set me down in my chair." He plopped me down and seated himself on the coffee table between me and the flat screen.
"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" he persisted. "Did you want me to sleep on your couch for tonight? Or I could make a fort out of the cushions and put you in the middle to make you safe."
"Um, yeah, I think these four walls will be safe enough," I replied.
Garrison sighed and stood up. "All right, have it your way."
"Naturally, I'm a girl."
"I'll be sure to get a new key for you tomorrow. Anything else you might need?"
"Yeah, an uneventful weekend." I slumped down and sighed. "For once I wish I'd been out partying instead of trying to have a relaxing Friday night at home."
Garrison looked over my long face, and then glanced at the kitchen. "You want me to fix you something to drink? Could take your mind off things."
"I don't think-"
"Good, I'm glad you agree, and I know just the drink that will give you a good night's rest." He hurried over past my chair to the kitchen and banged all the cupboards shut searching for the ingredients to his concoction. After seeing his coffee a new offer of a drink wrenched my stomach.
I turned around in my chair and glanced over the back. He'd already found a knife and was cutting away at an innocent orange with my blender at his side. "I'm fine, really," I called to him. Or I would be if he'd stop trying to spoon feed me his drinks. "I just want to get to bed and sleep until Doomsday."
"Got any vodka?" he asked me.
"Um, no, and as I was saying I'll be perfectly fine without-"
"Damn it!" he swore. He held up his hand and grimaced at his fingers.
"What happened?" I stumbled out of my chair and to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. He turned his back to me so I couldn't see what was wrong.
"It's nothing, just a flesh wound."
"Uh-huh, turn around and let me see it. I don't want anybody bleeding to death on me." Garrison turned around and the hand he clutched had a nice, thick slice of dried blood on the top of his middle finger. "Ouch. Get some water on that, stat."
"It's nothing, just some tomato," he insisted. There was a cut tomato beside the sliced orange.
"Clean it off," I ordered him.
He shrugged, walked over to the sink and let his finger sit under a steady stream of tap water. The water rinsed away the dried blood and revealed. . .nothing. Well, there was skin, but no cut beneath the blood. "See? I just thought I cut myself."
This man was getting stranger and stranger. "You sure sounded convinced," I countered.
"Um, April Fool's?"
"It's October."
"Trick-or-treat?"
"I told you I don't like surprises."
"Well, um, how about some of my Surprise Juice?" He whipped around, shoved the fruit into the blender and whirled it around for a few seconds. Whatever he'd put into the machine made for a wine-colored concoction that had a funny smell to it. Garrison took off the blender container, grabbed a tall glass, poured out the thick contents and held it out to me.
I looked from the glass up to his face. "This some kind of poison?"
This was one service with a smile that I didn't trust. "I guarantee you'll like it."
"I think I've lost my appetite that I told you I didn't have."
"It's not poison. See?" He lifted the glass to his lips and drank a sip, then rubbed his stomach. "Mhm, good. Now you try it." He held out the glass to me again.
I sighed. "If I drink this will you promise to let me get some sleep?"
"I promise to let you get some sleep," he swore. I grabbed the drink, plugged my nose and downed the contents in a few gulps. It had a tangy flavor with a hint of rust. Then I handed back the empty glass and frowned when my stomach gurgled. Before I could stop myself I'd let out a gigantic belch that blew Garrison away. "Wow! That was a good one!"
"Compliments later, getting out now," I reminded him.
"All right, but you're missing out on a killer omelet I could make for tomorrow's breakfast," he teased.
I walked around the kitchen bar, got behind him and shoved him into the living room and at the door. "I'm sure I'll survive a morning without your omelet." I'd probably end up surviving a lifetime without his cooking.
"Then I guess I'll see you-" He didn't get a chance to finish because I shoved him out into the hall and slammed the door behind him. I leaned my back up against the door and sighed. That's when I heard a knock from the other side. I rolled my eyes, turned around and opened the door a crack. Garrison's sheepish grin greeted me. "Don't forget to give back my shirt." I growled, slammed the door shut, and marched off to bed. I'd had one hell of a day.