Horrifying Encounters on Late Night Walks

At 21, I was old enough to pay rent to my parents, but apparently not old enough to leave their house without explaining where I was going. That was how I saw it at the time anyway. Looking back, I can understand their side of it a little better. I was their only son, I worked around heavy equipment, and I wasn't very good about telling people when my plans changed. My mother worried, my father tried to keep her from worrying, and I usually ended up feeling like I was 14 again. We weren't constantly fighting or anything. Most of the time we got along. It was just difficult to feel like an adult when someone wanted to know why you needed your shoes at nine in the evening. I was living with them to save money. This was in the early 2000s, outside Altoona, Pennsylvania, and I'd gotten a full-time job at a building supply yard after leaving a community college program I didn't like. I wasn't ashamed of the job. The pay was decent, I liked most of the people there, and I was learning to operate equipment I actually enjoyed using. But moving back into my old room had been harder than I expected. My mother still washed my clothes if I left them anywhere she could find them. My father still came upstairs to tell me when I should be getting some sleep. After a while, I started taking walks once they went to bed. I didn't climb through a window or do anything dramatic. I went down the stairs, carried my shoes past their room, and used the side door. I always locked it behind me. If they'd asked, I would have told them where I'd been, but I wasn't volunteering the information. That distinction seemed important to me then. I could spend an hour outside without somebody asking whether I'd eaten, whether I was cold, or whether I had work in the morning. It was the only part of my day that felt completely mine. Most nights I followed the same route, came back, and ate something over the kitchen sink before going to bed. Nothing happened for months, eventually I stopped thinking of it as going out at night. It was just a walk. Our neighborhood sat above an older industrial section of town. There were still a few businesses down there, including the supply yard where I worked, but most of the buildings had been divided up or left empty. A laundromat occupied the front corner of what had once been a factory. My employer rented the warehouse behind it and used the old loading yard to store gravel, sand, and concrete blocks. A narrow service road ran along the back of the property, beside a creek and a strip of trees. That road was part of my usual loop. It wasn't somewhere you'd drive unless you had a reason to. On foot, though, it was a convenient way to get from the upper neighborhood to the main road without following the longer curve around the hill. There was a short pedestrian bridge at the far end, where the service road stopped, and a paved path continued uphill. I normally went down through the houses, but I didn't know how to get there. I didn't know how to get there. the houses, passed the laundromat, followed the service road, and crossed that bridge on my way home. The whole thing took about 50 minutes if I didn't stop. What happened was on a Thursday in October. I remember the day because I'd spent most of that afternoon unloading bags of mortar, and my forearms were still sore. I almost stayed home. We'd also had some rain earlier, and I knew the service road would be muddy along the edges. But I'd been in my room for a couple of hours, listening to my parents' television through the floor, and I wanted some air. I left a little before midnight with a sweatshirt on and my keys in my pocket. My house key and work keys were all on the same ring. I didn't own a cell phone yet. The walk was normal right up until I reached the pedestrian bridge. I passed the laundromat and saw Ruth behind the counter, working on a crossword. She was the owner, a woman in her late 50s who kept the place open all night on her own. weekdays for people coming off the late shifts. I knew her well enough to say hello when I went in for a soda during work. That night I didn't go inside. I could see her through the front windows, and then I was past the building and heading along the service road. The creek was high enough that I could hear water moving over the rocks. A couple of the security lights on the warehouse were on, and there was a streetlight on the neighborhood side of the bridge. Between those places it was dark. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't see But I knew where the broken pavement was. That familiarity probably made me less careful than I would have been somewhere else. There was somebody underneath the bridge railing. That's the easiest way to describe what I first saw, although it didn't make sense even then. The bridge was only about 20 feet long, with metal rails along both sides and concrete supports at either end. On the near side, down where the rail met the concrete, a man's head and shoulders were visible. I couldn't see He seemed to be crouching on the narrow ledge outside the railing. His hands were wrapped around two of the vertical bars, and his face was turned away from me, toward the water. I stopped about 30 feet short of him. I thought he was either sick or using the creek as a bathroom, and I didn't especially want to be involved in either situation. He had something dark over his shoulders. I took it for a heavy coat. His head was bare, and there was enough light from the far end of the bridge to show the railing. I couldn't back of it. I couldn't see any hair. I waited for him to notice me. When he didn't, I scuffed my shoe against the pavement. It wasn't an attempt to scare him. I just didn't want to walk directly past somebody in the dark and surprise him. He turned his head slightly. His hands stayed where they were. The first thing I noticed was that he was holding the bars backward. His palms were facing me, with his fingers hooked around the far sides. I actually raised one of my hands a little, trying to work out how his wrists were positioned. It was possible, but it wasn't a comfortable way to hold on to anything. His elbows were pressed against his body, and the backs of his hands were nearly touching his chest. I said I was just coming across. He didn't answer. He lowered his face until I couldn't see it behind the concrete edge. His hands came off the bars, one after the other. I heard something drag across stone below the bridge, followed by a small splash. For a second, I thought he'd fallen. But then I could see part of his back moving beneath the deck. He'd gotten down into the creek bed on his own. I should have turned around. I know that. But at that point, all I thought I'd seen was a man who wanted to be left alone. The bridge led straight into a neighborhood. Going back meant walking the length of the service road again. I gave him another few seconds, then started across on the opposite side from where he'd been sitting. Halfway over, I glanced down through the railing beside me. He'd moved beneath the bridge to the side I was crossing on. He was crouched in the shallow water just beyond the edge of the deck. His knees were bent out to either side, and his chest was almost level with them. His head was tipped all the way back so he could look up at me. There was no coat. What I'd taken for a collar was a thick fold of bare skin above his shoulders. I couldn't get a good look at the rest of him. There were bars between us, and I was already moving. What I remember clearly is that his face didn't change when we looked at each other. He didn't squint or open his mouth, or do any of the little things a person does when they're caught staring. His eyes followed me while everything around them stayed still. I crossed the rest of the bridge quickly. On the uphill side, the paved path passed a retaining wall before coming out between two houses. I was maybe a dozen yards along it when something scraped against the concrete behind me. I turned and saw his hands come over the end of the bridge. He pulled himself onto the path without getting to his feet. His body came up in one heavy movement, and I saw how wide he was through the shoulders. He wasn't particularly tall. If anything, he seemed short, but he was so tightly folded over himself that I couldn't work out where his waist ended and his legs began. I stopped with both hands flat on the pavement and looked uphill at me. I told him to stay there. I didn't shout. My voice came out quieter than I meant it to, and I immediately wished I'd sounded more confident. He moved one hand forward, then the other. His knees slid between his arms. It was an awkward way for a person to move, but he wasn't having any trouble with it. I backed up until my heel caught the raised edge of the path. That made me look away from him for a second. When I looked again, he'd closed about half the distance between us. I ran uphill. The first house on the right had a porch light on, and I went straight to its front door. The path met the street just uphill of its driveway. There was a car in the driveway. I remember that because I kept looking at it while I pressed the doorbell, trying to convince myself somebody had to be home. I rang it several times and hit the door with the side of my fist. Nobody came. A dog started barking somewhere farther up the street. From the porch, I could see the opening where the path came between us. the houses. The man appeared there on his hands and feet. Under the porch light, I could see that his back was bare too. It was dark gray, uneven in places, with pale dirt stuck to it. He stopped beside a low concrete wall. His face was turned toward the steps. There was no confusion left in my mind about whether he was following me. I shouted at the door that I needed help. Then he started coming across the lawn. I didn't wait for whoever lived there to wake up. I jumped off the side of the porch and ran down the driveway, away from the path. Home was uphill, but he was between me and that direction now. The main road was downhill. Ruth was downhill. I could picture her sitting at the laundromat counter, ten minutes away at a walk, much less if I ran. I headed for her. I don't remember much of the story. I don't remember that run beyond individual things I was trying not to hit. A trash can near the curb. A low branch over the sidewalk. A car pulling into a driveway that was too far away to flag down. I was afraid to look behind me, because I kept imagining that face right beside mine when I turned. At the bottom of the hill, where the street bent around toward the industrial buildings, I finally checked. He wasn't in the street. For a few seconds, I thought I'd lost him. Then I saw movement in the street. I thought I'd lost him. Then I saw movement in the drainage ditch running beside the supply yard. He was down in it, moving through the wet weeds. The ditch cut across the inside of the curve, which meant he'd taken a shorter route. I could see his back rising above the grass each time he pushed forward. He was keeping up with me without using the road at all. I ran harder. By the time I reached the laundromat, I couldn't get enough air to say anything. I pulled the door open, stumbled inside, and shoved it closed behind me. Ruth stood up from her stool. She thought I was sick at first. She came around the counter holding a roll of paper towels, asking if I'd been drinking. All I could manage was to point at the lock. She turned the deadbolt. Then she looked out through the glass. Across the parking lot, between the end of the building and her station wagon, the man was crouched beside the curb. He'd stopped moving. With the laundromat lights behind us, he was easier to see than he'd been at the bridge. And I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. There weren't any shoes on his feet. There weren't separate toes that I could make out either. The ends of his feet were broad and flat, and he was resting on their outside edges. Ruth asked whether that was who I was running from. I nodded. She studied him for another second, then went behind the counter for the phone. She didn't tell me I was overreacting. She didn't ask what I'd done to upset him. Before she even dialed, she reached beneath the counter and switched off the illuminated open sign. She called the police and said a young man had come into her business because someone was chasing him. She gave the address, then handed me the receiver so I could describe what had happened. I said the person outside wasn't wearing clothes and was moving around on all fours. Saying it out loud made it sound different. It sounded like I was reporting someone having a medical emergency. The woman on the phone asked whether he had a weapon. I told her I hadn't seen one, while I was answering her questions he moved toward Ruth's car. He didn't try the doors. He put his head underneath the back bumper and pushed forward. I watched his shoulders flatten, his arms spreading out along the pavement. His chest went under first, then the rest of him followed, slowly enough that I could see the pressure of the car against his back. The rear of the station wagon lifted an inch or two and settled again. I stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. There wasn't a single word I could hear. I couldn't hear a single word. There wasn't enough room under that car. I couldn't have gotten under it on my back, and this thing had shoulders twice as wide as mine. Ruth saw it happen too. She put her hand on my arm so hard it hurt. I told the dispatcher he was underneath a vehicle now. She told us to stay inside, keep the doors locked, and call back immediately if he tried to get in. An officer was coming from the other side of the township. It might take fifteen minutes. After hanging up, Ruth checked the back door. There was nobody else in the laundromat. Two dryers were running, but those belonged to a customer who'd dropped off a load earlier. The ordinary noise made everything worse somehow. I kept looking at a pair of blue pants going around behind the glass, then back at the parking lot, unable to accept that both things were happening at the same time. Ruth offered to call my parents. I almost said no. Even then, after everything I'd just seen, I had this stupid reflex to keep them from knowing I'd gone out. Then I looked at the space beneath her car and gave her our number. I took the receiver when my mother answered. She was half asleep until I told her where I was. I said somebody had followed me and that the police were coming. She asked if I was hurt, and I said no. I could hear my father getting out of bed before she finished telling him. I told him the same thing I'd told the dispatcher, including the part about the car. He didn't argue with me. He said he would pull his truck right up to the front door and stay inside it until we knew it was safe. I asked him to be careful. I remember repeating that, which wasn't something I normally said to him. He told me to keep the door locked and let the officer handle whoever was outside. Ruth had a flashlight beneath the counter. We turned it on and tried to see under the station wagon from inside, but the reflection in the window made it difficult. She switched off the light and turned it on. I tried to see under the station wagon from inside, lights nearest the front. That helped enough for us to see the underside of the car and something pressed against it. I could make out one hand resting beside a rear tire. The fingers were flat on the ground, spread farther apart than they should have been. Then the hand withdrew. We watched both ends of the car. Nothing came out. Ruth kept the flashlight pointed there until her wrist began to shake. She lowered it and said something I didn't expect. A few mornings earlier, she'd found greasy marks along the bottom of the back door. She'd assumed somebody had tried to pry it open. The locksmith hadn't found any damage to the lock, so she'd stopped worrying about it. Now she was looking toward that door again. I went with her to check it. It opened into a shared passage along the side of the building, which connected the laundromat to the warehouse and the loading yard. The door was shut. With its bolt in place. Ruth said the marks were on the passage side. We weren't opening it to look. She tested the handle, then pulled on the door to make sure the bolt held. When we returned to the front, I could still make out its back beneath the station wagon. I tried to persuade myself that this meant it was hiding from us now. Maybe it was frightened. Maybe it was sick. Then a face appeared between the back tire and the pavement. It was lying sideways. With one eye visible beneath the car. The cheek was pressed completely flat against the asphalt. I could see the eye move, following Ruth as she crossed in front of me. It didn't blink when the flashlight passed over it. A crease below it opened, and for the first time I saw the mouth. It extended much farther back than I'd realized, into the fold where the jaw should have met the neck. Ruth stepped away from the window. I stayed there a second longer, waiting for her to come back. I couldn't wait any longer. I couldn't call it a man anymore. I didn't have another word ready for it. I just knew I'd been wrong. My father's truck turned into the lot several minutes later. He followed the building around and stopped with the passenger door a few feet from the entrance. I could see him looking at Ruth's car. He had both hands on the steering wheel. He wasn't coming out, just as he'd promised. I went to the glass and held up a hand so he would wait. He nodded. Then he leaned forward to look past the passenger seat, trying to see what I was pointing at. His truck blocked most of our view of the station wagon. I couldn't see the thing underneath it anymore. The truck moved sideways. It wasn't a huge movement, but the tires made a short squeal against the pavement, and my father's head jerked toward the driver's window. Something dark rose on that side of the cab. I saw two hands hook over the roof. Then the driver's window broke inward, and my father threw the truck over the window. I saw the truck move sideways, and my father threw himself across the seat. I unlocked the laundromat door. Ruth was already beside me. My father pushed the passenger door open with his shoulder and fell halfway out of the truck. His left forearm was covered in blood. I grabbed the back of his jacket while Ruth held the entrance open. For a second, his boot caught under the dashboard, and he couldn't get free. He was kicking at the floor and telling me to pull. Across the cab, behind him, I saw the thing trying to push its head through the broken driver's window. The opening was full of its face. The lower part of its mouth dragged across the seat, and my father pulled his legs in just before it reached them. I hauled him backward hard enough that we both fell on the laundromat floor. Ruth slammed the door and locked it. My father was trying to get to his feet before I'd even let go of his coat. He looked back at the truck, and I saw the moment he understood this wasn't somebody in the middle of a breakdown. He didn't know what was going on. He didn't ask me what I'd done or where I'd been. He took hold of my sweatshirt and pulled me away from the glass. The thing climbed through the cab. It came out the open passenger door headfirst, dropped onto the pavement, and turned toward us. There was blood around its mouth, but some of it was dark enough that I thought it might have cut itself on the broken window. It pressed one hand against the laundromat door. The glass shifted in the frame. Ruth was calling the police again. This time she said an animal had attacked a man and was trying to get inside. She didn't seem to care whether that contradicted what we'd said earlier. My father held his injured arm against his stomach and looked around for another way out. I pointed toward the back. The door shook hard enough to rattle the change machine beside it. A crack appeared in one corner of the glass. The thing wasn't striking it with a fist. It had braced its feet against the curb and was pushing with its whole body, its head turned sideways so one eye could watch us through the pain. Ruth unzipped my father's jacket and pushed back the loose sleeve. She pressed a folded towel against his forearm and made him hold it there while I unlocked the rear door. I had a key to the warehouse at the end of the passage. Beyond that was our office, which had concrete block walls and a steel door. I told Ruth to tell the dispatcher we were going there. She gave them the name of the supply business and said to use the main entrance on the road. Then she put the receiver down without hanging up. We entered the passage together. Ruth locked the laundromat door. She opened the door behind us with her key, and we hurried toward the warehouse. My father was pale but walking on his own. Ruth held the flashlight over my shoulder while I tried my keys. My hand was shaking so badly that I scraped the wrong one against the lock before finding the right one. Behind us, glass broke in the laundromat. I got the warehouse door open. We went through and shut it. There was no deadbolt on that side, only the lock in the handle, so I dragged a pallet of bagged, sand in front of it with a pallet jack. I lowered the pallet onto the floor and pulled the jack free. It was something I'd done hundreds of times at work. Having an ordinary task helped for maybe ten seconds. Then I looked at my father's arm again and nearly lost control of myself. The office was on the other side of the warehouse, beside the large door into the loading yard. I hit the light switches as we went. Overhead lamps came on above racks of lumber and stacks of wood. came on above racks of lumber and stacks of cement bags. My lunch container was still beside the time clock. I remember seeing it and thinking that I should have taken it home, which is such an absurd thing to have noticed that I've never forgotten it. Ruth helped my father into the office and called the police from the desk phone. I stayed by the open office door. A sharp crack came from the passage, followed by wood hitting the floor. The laundromat's rear door had given way. Through the warehouse windows, I could see the yard, the concrete storage bays along its far side, and the loader parked near the open-sided equipment shed. I used that loader almost every day to fill customers' trucks. Its cab was enclosed. Its bucket was wide enough to take most of a pickup load of gravel in one scoop. Our delivery truck was locked in the other building, and I didn't have its key. I did have access to the loader. The main gate was at the far corner of the yard, across a long stretch of open ground. My father couldn't run that distance. There was space behind the loader's seat where Ruth could crouch, and my father could sit low beside me. It would be a horrible squeeze, but we only had to reach the road. The loader could push through the vehicle gate if I couldn't get it unlocked. I was explaining that when something struck the passage door behind the pallet. The sandbag shifted. The handle side of the door opened about an inch, then stopped against the pallet. I could hear the wood splitting around the lock. My father came to the office doorway, looked at it, and told me to get the loader running. He could see what I was thinking before I said it. I told him to stay in the office with Ruth and keep the steel door shut. I would bring the machine right outside the warehouse's yard door. We would only have to cross a few feet to climb aboard. He nodded, holding the towel against his arm. I pushed the office door closed, waited until I heard the bolt slide into place, and raised the big loading door with the wall control. Then I ran for the yard. The loader was about 60 feet away. I had to cross an open stretch of gravel to reach it, and I expected to feel a hand on my back the entire way. There was a small locked cabinet beneath the shed where we kept its key. I unlocked it with my work key, took the loader key off its hook, and dropped my own keys while trying to close the cabinet. They landed somewhere in the gravel. I left them there. I climbed into the cab and shut the door. For a second I couldn't remember which way to turn the ignition. I knew that machine. I could get it started, check the gauges, and drive it out of the shed without really thinking about what I was doing. But that night, I sat there staring at the controls until I heard something fall inside the warehouse. Then my hand moved, the engine turned over, and I almost started crying from relief. I switched on the work lights. The yard became bright enough that I could see individual stones in front of the bucket. I raised it just clear of the ground, released the brake, and pulled away from the shed. Through the open loading door, I could see the pallet I'd used to block the passage. It had been shoved sideways. A few sandbags had spilled off it. The thing was inside. It wasn't at the office door. It was halfway up one of the lumber racks, holding itself between the steel uprights. Its face was pointed toward the small office roof. That room had been built inside the warehouse years after the warehouse itself, and its ceiling was just timber and plasterboard. I'd thought about the block walls and the steel door. I hadn't thought about what was above them. I held down the horn. Ruth opened the office door a few inches, and I held up my hand for her to wait until I was closer. I could see my father getting up behind her. The thing turned its head toward the loader, then dropped from the rack. It landed on its hands without seeming to slow down at all. I drove closer to the loading doorway and angled the cab steps toward the office. Once I stopped, I waved them out. Ruth came first, with my father right behind her. She had one hand around his good arm. The loader's tires were nearly as tall as her shoulders, and she looked very small beside them. I pushed the cab door open and shouted for them to climb up. Ruth reached the first step. My father was turning to follow her when the thing came around a stack of blocks inside the warehouse. I saw its head and shoulders, then the rest of it came forward so quickly I had no time to move the machine. It caught the back of my father's jacket and pulled him away from the steps. He fell onto his side, dropping the towel. Ruth stepped back down and grabbed his good wrist with both hands. She pulled while he kicked at the thing's face. It was trying to get its mouth around his shoulder, but his loose jacket had bunched beneath his neck. For a moment that fabric was all that kept it from reaching him. I reversed a few feet and turned until the bucket faced the struggle beside the doorway. I lowered it, but I couldn't move forward without hitting my father too. Ruth kept pulling. My father shoved his injured arm out of the jacket, leaving the sleeve inside out. Then his other shoulder came free, and the two of them fell backward into the yard. The thing stayed on the jacket for half a second. That was enough. I brought the bucket forward and caught it from the side. There was a heavy impact through the machine. It rolled across the gravel and struck a stack of concrete blocks near the building. My father and Ruth got behind a stack of pallets beside the loading door. I could see his hand on her shoulder, keeping her down. I thought I'd broken the thing's back. It lay against the blocks with one arm beneath it and its face pressed into the gravel. Then it pushed itself up. Its mouth hung open, showing pale tissue along the inside of the lower jaw. It looked at the loader. For the first time since the bridge, its attention was completely off the people on the ground. I backed into the open center of the yard. I wanted it away from them. I also wanted enough room to turn, because the storage bays had walls on three sides, and I didn't want to get trapped between them. The thing followed me for a few yards, low to the ground. Then it suddenly went under the bucket. I lost sight of it beneath the front of the machine. I stopped, instead of driving over a position I couldn't see. Ruth was helping my father through the loading doorway toward the office. I could see both of them, but I didn't know if the thing had gone around behind me or was directly beneath the cab. I pulled the door closed and looked down through the side window. A hand came up over the outside step. It climbed the loader much faster than it had climbed out of the creek. Its weight hit the side of the cab, and the whole machine rocked. I pulled my elbow away from the window just before the glass broke. Small pieces struck my cheek and went down the neck of my sweatshirt. One hand reached through the opening and closed around the edge of the seat. I pressed myself was a lot of people. almost nothing human about it. The eyes were set too far to the sides, and the skin below them moved independently when it opened its mouth. What I'd mistaken for cheeks at the bridge were folds that pulled back from the jaw. I could see old gravel embedded in them. It pushed its face through the broken window. I hit it with my forearm because there wasn't room to do anything else. My sleeve caught on the glass, and I felt a long cut open near my wrist. Its hand left the seat and grabbed the front of my sweatshirt. The fabric tightened across my chest. My right hand was still beside the controls. I shoved the loader into reverse and hit the accelerator. The sudden movement pulled the thing against the outside of the window frame. Its grip tore the neck of my sweatshirt, and I fell backward against the seat. I kept reversing. until the rear tires hit a mound of loose stone. The cab jolted upward. The thing lost its hold and fell beside the front tire. I kept backing until I was clear of it. I braked and turned toward it. It was getting its arms beneath it, slower now, with one leg dragging. I lined up the bucket while it crawled into an empty storage bay. There was a concrete floor under the loose gravel there, and a solid wall at the back. I lowered the bucket and drove after it. It tried to crawl out of the way. The bucket caught its lower body and pushed it ahead of me. Both hands dug into the gravel. I could see grooves forming beneath the fingers, but it couldn't get any purchase. At the wall, it twisted around onto its back and tried to get its arms over the bucket's front edge. I raised the bucket just enough to pin it across the middle against the concrete. The loader stopped moving forward. Its tires slipped, and I backed off the accelerator. Its back was against the wall, with its chest and head above the front edge of the bucket. It kept reaching toward the cab. There was blood on the concrete behind it, but it was still trying to pull itself closer to me. I held it there. I don't know for how long. My right hand hurt from gripping the control, and my left sleeve was sticking to my skin. In the side mirror, I caught headlights moving along the road behind me. A police car stopped outside the main gate. Another pulled in behind it. I wanted to turn around and wave, but I was afraid of taking my eyes off what was in front of me. It got one hand over the side of the bucket. Then the other. Its chest started to lift. Even with its lower body crushed against the wall, it was pulling itself free. I could see the skin tearing where the metal held it, and it didn't stop. Its mouth opened wider. I heard air coming out of it over the engine. A wet, strained sound. I could feel it in my stomach. I kept the loader pressing forward and raised the bucket higher. The edge moved up beneath its chest, forcing its shoulders against the wall. It let go of the rim and tried to brace its hands behind its head. I kept lifting. The metal reached the underside of its jaw, and its head was forced backward against the concrete. The sound was loud enough that I heard it clearly inside the cab. Its hands opened. Its head dropped forward over the bucket. The movement in its shoulders stopped. I stopped raising the bucket but kept it pressed against the wall, while the engine idled and the lights from the police cars moved across the yard. Ruth came out of the warehouse and ran to the gate. The vehicle entrance was padlocked, but the smaller pedestrian gate beside it had a release on the inside. She opened that and let the officers through. One went straight to my father. The other approached the loader from the side, holding up a hand so I could see him. He looked at the bucket, then at me. Whatever he'd expected to find when he answered the call, it wasn't that. He had to tell me several times to put the machine in neutral. I did, but I wouldn't move the bucket. He didn't insist. He stayed beside the cab while I set the brake and climbed down on the side with the intact window. As soon as my boots touched the ground, my legs gave out. He caught me under the arms and helped me sit beside the tire. My father was alive. That was the first thing I asked, even though I could see him talking to the other officer. Ruth had gone back to him. She was kneeling beside him at the office doorway, pressing a clean rag from the workbench against his arm. She had gravel ground into both knees and one shoe missing. When she saw me looking at her, she raised her free hand. I tried to do the same, but I couldn't stop shaking. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. Before they took me away, I saw another officer standing beside the bucket. He was close enough to examine what was caught there, but he wasn't touching it. He looked up at the first officer and shook his head. It wasn't a gesture of disbelief. They were checking whether it was still alive. It wasn't. My father needed surgery on his forearm. There were cuts from the window and two deeper wounds where the thing had caught him before he got across the seat. He recovered most of the use of his hand, although two fingers stayed partly numb. I needed stitches near my wrist and had glass removed from my scalp. Ruth had a sprained wrist and bruises. None of us went home that night. My mother came to the hospital before the doctors were finished with me. I expected questions. I expected her to ask why I'd gone out, or why I hadn't told her, or how long I'd been doing it. She sat beside the bed, put her hand on the back of her head, and put her hand on the back of her head, and stayed there until someone came to tell us my father was out of surgery. I was 21 years old, and I held onto her coat the entire time. I didn't get to watch them remove the body. My employer had to come down and operate the loader once the police finished examining the yard. He told me later that they lowered it onto a heavy tarp and took it away in a county truck. He'd seen plenty of injured deer and livestock. I'd seen plenty of injured deer and livestock. He didn't offer me an explanation for what it was. He just asked if I wanted someone else to use the loader for a while when I came back. The police took separate statements from all three of us. They also went to the bridge. There was an old drainage opening beside one of the supports, mostly hidden by brush, with animal remains inside and a stretch of flattened ground leading up to the path. A township crew cleared the brush and fitted a steel barrier over the opening. I wasn't there for any of that. An officer told me about it when he returned my keys, which somebody had found near the equipment shed. I asked him what the animal had been. He said they hadn't identified it. I asked again a few weeks later and got the same answer. That's as much as I can honestly tell you. There was a dead thing. There were three injured people, and the people responsible for writing it down didn't have a useful name to put on the form. I never went back to walking, that route at night. For a while I couldn't even drive past the turn without feeling sick. Eventually I returned to work, and eventually I used the loader again. The window had been replaced. My employer had washed the machine himself. I sat in the cab for a long time before starting it. But I finished my shift. That mattered to me more than I expected. Ruth sold the laundromat a few years afterward and moved closer to her sister. We stayed in touch. My father still calls her on her birthday. He says that if she hadn't held onto his wrist, he wouldn't have gotten out of that jacket, and I think he's right. I've told her the same thing. She usually changes the subject before either of us can finish. I moved out the following spring. My parents helped me carry furniture into the apartment, and my mother brought enough food to fill the freezer. We were still the same people, with most of the same little arguments. But she stopped asking me to explain every time I went somewhere. I got better about telling her when I would be home. There hasn't been another encounter. I watched that thing die against the wall, and the officers who entered the yard saw its body. I don't know how long it had been living beside the bridge, or how many nights I'd walked over it without looking down. Those are questions I still have, but they aren't the part I think about most. Usually I remember the phone in the laundromat. I remember almost refusing when Ruth offered to call my parents, because I didn't want them to know where I was. Then I remember my father's truck pulling up exactly where he'd said it would, and how relieved I was to see him. All that time I'd spent trying to prove I didn't need anybody, and when he answered the phone, I could barely get the words out. I just wanted my dad to come get me. He came and we both got to go home. When I was 27, I walked home from work four nights a week. There wasn't much of a story behind it. I rented a small place outside Salem, Oregon, and worked in the kitchen of a hotel a little under two miles away. My car was gone by then. I'd sold it, because I was spending more keeping it running than I was spending on rent, which was an impressive achievement considering the rent. There was a bus I could take to work, coming home from work. Coming home was harder. By the time we finished cleaning the kitchen after a late event, the last useful bus had already gone. A couple of people offered me rides sometimes. I accepted if they were heading my way, but I wasn't going to make somebody drive across town because I didn't feel like walking. On a dry night, it took about 35 minutes. I had decent shoes and a cheap rain jacket. That covered most of what I needed. I'd walk home, heat something up, and watch television until I could sleep. I was usually more bothered by having another shift in the morning than by anything I saw outside. This happened in the spring of 2013. I'm going to call myself Gavin. The other man who was attacked has given me permission to tell his part, but I'm changing his name too. He's Miles in this account. Some of what happened inside the building was hard for me to put in order afterward. He helped with that. For the parts neither of us knew at the time, I'll say how we found out. My route started on a fairly busy road with restaurants and a pharmacy. Then I turned onto a residential street. I used a paved pedestrian path along the outside of an old recreation club. The club had tennis courts and an outdoor pool. It had closed a couple of years earlier, and somebody had been trying to sell the property ever since. The public path remained open. It connected the two neighborhoods on either side and saved me a long walk around the block. There was a fence between the path and the club. Most of it had shrubs growing against it, so I could only see bits of the property as I passed. I knew where the building was because the path crossed its access drive. Beyond the club, the path came out on another residential street. From there, I had six or seven minutes left before I reached my place. I never went onto the club grounds. There was no reason to. The night this happened, we finished a little earlier than expected. A company had booked a dinner in one of the meeting rooms, and most of the guests left before 10. I clocked out at 10.42. I remember the time because it was on the copy of my timesheet the police later asked for. I changed out of my kitchen shoes, put them in my shoulder bag, and left through the employee entrance. My jacket was open. I still had the little plastic name badge on my shirt. That turned out to matter. Nothing seemed wrong for the first part of the walk. A few restaurants were still open, and there were cars at the traffic lights. I stopped at a convenience store for a bottle of water. I wasn't wearing headphones. I'd lost one of the earbuds a week earlier and hadn't replaced them. People asked me about that afterward, as though hearing better would have made the whole thing obvious. I heard everything. I just misunderstood what I was hearing. The van passed me while I was waiting to cross a side street. It was a dark blue passenger van, the older kind with a high roof and curtains on the rear windows. There was nothing particularly interesting about it. The driver told me, I turned onto the street I was about to cross, slowed down, and lowered his window. He asked whether the hotel was back the way I'd come. I said it was, and pointed toward the main road. He asked if I worked there. I looked down at my shirt because I assumed he'd noticed the badge, then said yes. He wanted to know whether the restaurant was still open. I told him the kitchen had closed. That was the whole conversation. He thanked me and drove on. I crossed behind him and kept going. A few minutes later, I saw the van again. It was parked beside a low apartment building ahead of me, facing the other direction now. The engine was running. I could see the driver through the windshield, but he wasn't looking at me. He seemed to be doing something down near his lap. I kept to the side of the sidewalk farthest from the van as I passed. He didn't open his window or say anything. I remember deciding that he was probably looking up another place to eat. It wasn't a restaurant. It wasn't an unreasonable explanation. The fact that I could explain something didn't make the explanation right. But that's a distinction I hadn't learned to make yet. There was a man walking toward me farther up the sidewalk. He had a gray jacket with a narrow reflective strip across the chest, dark trousers, and a canvas bag hanging from one shoulder. He looked about 40. His hair was very short, and he had the tired expression of somebody finishing a shift. When we came level, he slowed down and glanced past me toward the van. He asked if the driver had bothered me. I said he'd only asked for directions. The man made a face and told me the same van had pulled alongside him twice. He said he'd turned back because he didn't want the driver following him onto the path. Then he asked which way I was going. I pointed ahead, toward the opening between the houses. He said that was his way too. I didn't find it strange that he'd been walking toward me. He'd just explained why. I also didn't find it strange that he immediately turned around and started walking beside me. We'd apparently both had an unpleasant interaction with the same person. Standing there comparing notes would have felt more awkward than moving on. He said his name was Curtis. I told him mine, even though it was still printed on my chest. He asked if I minded some company until we got through the path. He worked evenings too, he said. Cleaning offices. He didn't name the company, and I didn't ask. I was never good at keeping conversations going with strangers, so it was a relief that he did most of the talking. I want to be clear about how ordinary he was. There wasn't some expression I ignored, or a terrible feeling I forced myself to dismiss. He kept a normal distance from me. He complained about his supervisor changing the schedule. When a car came out of a driveway, he stopped. He said, I stopped so I could go around him on the inside. It was all the sort of behavior you barely notice because you see it every day. We walked together for maybe four minutes. He asked whether I always came this way. I said most nights. He asked whether anybody from work lived nearby. I told him I lived alone. I hadn't meant to answer that question, but it was how I answered the one he'd actually asked. At the time, I was making conversation. Later, I remembered every piece of information I'd given him. We reached the entrance to the path. A small sign showed that bicycles were allowed, but motor vehicles weren't. There were two short posts with enough space between them for a person to pass. Curtis stopped beside one and looked back toward the street. I looked too. The blue van had pulled away from the apartment building. It was coming toward us slowly. Curtis said we should keep moving. That seemed sensible. A vehicle couldn't get onto the path from that end, and there were houses beyond the club. We went between the posts. For a while, the hedge blocked our view of the street. I could hear an engine, but I couldn't tell whether it belonged to the van or another car on the road. The path was narrow enough that we couldn't comfortably walk side by side. Curtis let me go first. The fence was on my right, and a row of back gardens was on my left. Most of those gardens had tall, wooden fences. I knew the path was enclosed like that, and normally I liked being out of the traffic. With somebody behind me, it felt safer than it had on other nights. About halfway along, we came to the access drive. The path crossed it just inside the property boundary before continuing beside the tennis courts. To my left, the drive curved back toward the street. To my right, it led to the club building through an alleyway. To my right, it led to an open gate with an old sign hanging from it. I had seen that gate closed every time I'd walked past. That night, one half was folded against the fence. Curtis said something was different. He'd noticed the gate, too. He walked a couple of steps onto the drive and looked toward the building. I stayed on the path. A light was on above one of the doors. Through the gap in the hedge, I could see the front corner of the blue van parked beside it. I stopped moving. Curtis came back toward me with one hand out, telling me to wait. He said we should turn around. I was already taking my phone from my pocket. I wasn't planning a confrontation. I wanted somebody to know where I was while I went back to the main road. Then Curtis looked toward the building and said, in a completely different voice, He's got his phone out. That was the moment I understood. I turned to run. His hand caught the strap of my bag and pulled it hard. It was hard enough to turn my upper body. I tried to get the strap over my head, but he'd stepped close behind me. Something pressed into the side of my neck. When I looked down, I could see his other hand holding a pistol. He told me to stop. I did. The driver came out from beside the van. He was shorter than Curtis and much heavier through the shoulders. He wore a dark sweatshirt and work gloves. There was a short metal bar in his right hand. He took my phone. I held my phone before I could do anything with it, then caught the front of my jacket and pulled me onto the drive. I tried to say they could have my wallet. He hit me across the upper arm with the bar, my knees bent without my meaning them to. Curtis kept the pistol against me. He was telling me to walk normally. The driver had my bag now, and he was carrying it by the strap as if it belonged to him. Between them, they moved me toward the building. It was maybe 40 feet. I could still see him. I could still see a square of light from somebody's upstairs window beyond the hedge. I stared at it while we crossed the road. the drive, thinking how little distance there was between where I was and where someone might have been brushing their teeth. I didn't shout. I've had years to think about that. I had a gun pressed into my side, my arm wasn't working properly, and I believed that making a noise would get me shot. If someone wants to say they'd have done something else, I can't argue with them. I can only tell you what I did. The driver opened a side door beside the van. The room beyond it had a reception counter and a row of empty shelves. There was dirt on the floor, but somebody had put a folding table beneath a working light. A small electric heater stood beside it. I noticed a half-eaten sandwich on a paper plate. That bothered me in a way I couldn't explain. They'd been sitting there eating while I was walking home. They took me down a short corridor to a changing room. One side had metal lockers, the other had benches attached to the wall. At the far end, an open doorway led to showers. A man was sitting on the floor beside that doorway with his wrists bound in front of him. His face was swollen on one side. He raised his head when we came in and then lowered it again. That was Miles. The driver pushed me onto a bench. Curtis stayed in the doorway with the gun. They emptied my pockets and opened my bag. My wallet went on the bench beside the driver's leg. My shoes and the bottle of water went on the floor. He looked disappointed by the shoes. I don't know what he'd expected to find. He asked for the number for my bank card. I gave it to him. Then he asked how much money was in the account. I told him a little under $400. He stared at me and asked again. I gave the same answer. He hit the bench beside my thigh with the bar, hard enough to leave a dent, and asked whether I had another account. I didn't. There was nothing that would make the amount larger. I told him when I got paid and what I'd already spent. I was explaining my finances to a man who had just dragged me off a public path. I remember apologizing. That part took me a long time to tell anybody. Curtis took over the questions after that. He wanted my phone unlocked. He wanted to know which door my house key opened, whether I had a computer at home, and whether anybody would be waiting up for me. I said I rented one room in a house where I could sleep. I said I rented a room in a house where I could sleep. I said I rented a room in a house with two other men. It was the first useful lie I managed. I'd already told him I lived alone, and he reminded me of that. I said I meant I wasn't married. I kept talking until he told me to stop. The driver took my bank card and a card from a wallet that wasn't mine. He read two sets of numbers from a scrap of cardboard on the bench. He copied my address from my license onto it and put it in his pocket with my house key. Then he went back toward reception. I heard the outside door shut, followed by the van starting. Curtis stayed with us until it drove away. He wound tape around my wrists and told me to sit on the floor beside Miles. My hands were in front of me. He didn't bind my legs. He didn't need to at that point. I was sitting in a small room with one visible way out, and a man pointing a gun at me. Before leaving, he crouched in front of Miles and lifted his chin with two fingers. Miles wouldn't look at him. Curtis told us the other man would be back soon. Then we were going for a ride. If the bank cards worked, he said, we'd be dropped somewhere we could find our way home. I asked where. He stood up without answering. He pulled the door closed. A lock clicked. There was still a light on in the changing room, a bare bulb above the benches that made it easy to see everything I didn't want to see. There was blood on Miles' jacket sleeve. He had the jacket open, and one of his shoes was missing. The front of his shirt had stretched so badly that part of the collar hung down over his chest. I asked whether he was hurt. It was an idiotic question, but I couldn't think of a better one. He said his left hand was broken. He'd put it over his face when the driver hit him. He moved his fingers a little, then stopped and shut his eyes. I asked how long he'd been there. He said maybe an hour. His phone had been taken, and he hadn't seen a clock. He'd been walking home from dinner with a friend. The van had stopped near him, and the driver had tried to get him to come over. He'd refused. A man coming the other way had asked whether he was alright. I looked at the door. Miles didn't have to finish. The two of us sat there while somebody moved things around in the front room. Curtis turned on a small television. I couldn't make out the program. Every so often, he laughed at something. I kept thinking about the four minutes we'd spent walking together. I'd told him I hated closing and opening on consecutive days. He'd agreed. He had sounded irritated on my behalf. While he was doing that, this man had been sitting in a locked room waiting for him to come back. Miles shifted closer. He said we couldn't get into the van. I told him we should wait until they had the money. I wanted to believe that was all they wanted. Miles looked toward the door again. Before they'd brought me in, he said, the driver had gone through his wallet and found his address. He'd asked about Miles' wife and whether she was home. Miles had told him she was visiting her sister. That was true. Then they'd made him describe the house. He wasn't guessing about what they wanted to do next. He'd heard them discussing taking him there before I arrived. They wanted him with them so they could get in and find what was worth taking. The promise about dropping us off had come afterward. I didn't have anything worth taking. I said that aloud. Miles looked at me for a second, then said they weren't going to believe either of us about what we did or didn't have. He was right. They already had my address. The lie about roommates might buy a little hesitation, but that was all. I started thinking about being taken into my own place with them. There wouldn't be anybody to hear us there. Even the man in the next apartment was away from work most weeks. Miles turned his hand so I could see the tape. One edge had come loose. He'd been working at it before they brought me in, but he'd stopped when he heard the outside door. His right hand was almost free. The trouble was his left. It had swollen around the tape, and every movement hurt him. He asked me to help hold it still. We sat facing each other, knees nearly touching. I couldn't do much with my own hands bound, but I could brace his wrist between them. He pulled slowly. Twice he had to stop because he was making noise through his teeth. We waited whenever we heard Curtis moving. Eventually, his right hand came free, and he bent forward over his knees until he could breathe normally again. He unwrapped my wrists with his good hand. It took much longer than I expected. The tape stuck to my arm hair, and my fingers had gone clumsy. When it finally came off, I couldn't get up so badly that he had to catch my sleeve. We listened first. Curtis was still in the front room. I helped with the tape around Miles' left wrist. He kept the damaged hand against his chest afterward. He was a bigger man than me, broad through the stomach and shoulders, but when I helped him stand, he leaned almost all his weight against the bench. His missing shoe was under the opposite row of lockers. I retrieved it and loosened the laces so he could get it on without using both hands. There was a door beyond the showers. From where we'd been sitting, it had been hidden by a short partition. Miles had noticed it earlier when they'd let him use the toilet. The door had a push bar and a narrow wired glass pane. Beyond the pane, I could see pale concrete and the metal legs of a chair. An old alarm box was attached above the frame. Its cover was hanging open, and the battery compartment was empty. While I tested the door, Miles picked up my water bottle from beside the bench and drank a little. He pushed it into his jacket pocket. I pressed the bar just enough to release the latch. Cool air came through the gap. Nothing else happened. The door opened onto the pool deck. The pool itself had been emptied, apart from a little dirty water at the bottom. From where I stood, I could see the shallow steps to my left and the deeper end to my right. The building ran along the near side. Privacy fencing enclosed the rest of the deck. A second door from the building opened onto the corner, close to where reception must have been. I eased the changing room door back until it was almost shut, then told Miles what I'd seen. I asked if he could walk. He said yes. I didn't ask whether he could run. I could see the answer. We went outside together. There was a light above the reception door and another near a little room marked for pool equipment. They weren't especially bright, but there was enough light to see where the edge was. I kept one hand on Miles' back as we went around the shallow end. There was a gate in the far fence near the deep end. We followed the far side of the pool to reach it. I could see a chain through the gate before we got there. I tried lifting the gate anyway. I tried pulling the chain through the gap. There wasn't enough slack. Through a narrow gap beside the gate, I could see the club's empty parking area and part The street was beyond that, out of sight from where we stood. I thought about calling for help, but the building was between us and most of the houses. Curtis was much closer. I didn't know whether he'd come out shooting or simply force us back inside. Along the fence were piles of old pool furniture. Most of it was broken. I found a heavy table with metal legs and pulled it toward the gate, stopping whenever one of the feet scraped. Miles helped with his good hand. We stood it against the fence and put a chair on top. The arrangement didn't look safe. It only needed to hold long enough for us to get over. I climbed first to see what was on the other side. The chair flexed under me. I got my hands over the top of the fence and leaned forward far enough to see a strip of grass and the parking area below. There was nothing immediately below us that would stop us landing. I got back down and told Miles I'd help him up, then follow. He put one foot on the table and reached for the chair. I lifted under his arm. He managed to get onto the table top, then tried to steady himself against the fence with his injured hand. He couldn't hold his weight on it. His knee struck the chair and it tipped backward. I caught the seat before it hit the ground. One metal leg struck the fence hard enough to make us both stop. The television went quiet inside. Miles was still standing on the table. I told him to get down. He tried to turn, and his shoe slipped off the edge. I caught his shoulder, but he landed on his side beside the table. He made one loud involuntary sound. It was the sort of sound you can't pretend is anything else. The door near reception opened. Curtis stood there with the pistol lowered beside his leg. For a few seconds, he just looked at us. I was crouched next to Miles with the fallen chair between my knees. Curtis looked from the table to the fence, then back to the open changing room door. His expression was almost bored. Somehow that frightened me more than if he'd shouted. He told us to come back inside. I said Miles couldn't stand. Curtis walked toward us along the side of the pool. He kept the gun pointed at me now. I had nowhere to go without leaving Miles on the ground. The table blocked the corner behind us, and the pool was a few feet to my left. I lifted my hands. Curtis told me to keep them where he could see them. He stopped close enough that I could see a little red mark on his neck where his collar rubbed. He told me to get Miles up. I reached down, but Miles couldn't get his legs beneath him quickly enough. Curtis grabbed the back of his shirt with his free hand and hauled him partway upright. Miles cried out. Curtis pulled harder. I didn't make a brave decision. I'd like to be able to say I did, but there wasn't time for that. The chair was still on its side against my shin. I caught the back of it and stood up, bringing it between us. Curtis turned the gun toward me. I shoved the chair at his chest with both hands. The gun went off. I felt something sting the side of my face. I thought I'd been shot. The chair was jammed between us, and he was trying to get the barrel around it. I couldn't let go without giving him a clear shot. He pushed forward, forcing me into the table. One of its legs struck Miles, who was still trying to get out from beneath us. Curtis took one hand off Miles to grab the chair. I drove it forward again. He didn't fall neatly backward. He twisted sideways, pulled me with him, and struck my mouth with his elbow. I tasted blood. For a second, all I could see was his jacket and the chair frame. Miles caught Curtis's trouser leg with his good hand. That was enough to stop him moving his foot when he needed to. His heel went over the pool edge. He dragged the chair down as he fell, and I went forward onto my knees. The frame hit the coping. One of the arms bent, and it tore out of my grip. I stopped with my chest against the edge and one hand hanging over the drop. Curtis landed at the deep end, several feet below me. I heard him hit the bottom. He didn't move for a moment. The chair lay beside him. The pistol had come out of his hand and slid across the floor toward the opposite wall. I pulled the chair down. I pulled myself away from the edge before I had time to understand any of that. Miles was sitting against the table, looking at me with his mouth open. My face hurt, but I could still breathe. I put my fingers to my cheek and found tiny pieces of concrete. The bullet had struck the fence's masonry support behind me. I hadn't been shot. I didn't know that for certain until a doctor examined me, but I could see the damaged post and feel where the chips had cut my skin. Curtis began making noise in the pool. He was trying to sit up. One leg was bent beneath him at an angle I couldn't look at for long. He saw where the pistol had landed and tried pulling himself toward it with his hands. His leg dragged behind him, and he stopped almost immediately. I helped Miles stand. We didn't wait to see whether Curtis could reach it. The door he'd come through was still open. We went inside and found ourselves in a little hallway behind reception. I couldn't Miles had his good arm across my shoulders. I could feel him shaking. I was shaking too, and it made walking together difficult. Every time one of us lost balance, the other nearly went down with him. There was a plastic tray on the folding table beside the sandwich. My phone was in it. So was another phone, a set of keys I didn't recognize, and two wallets. I recognized my blue phone case before I recognized anything else. I picked it up and called the police. My thumb kept landing on the wrong part of the screen. I had to put the phone flat on the table to finish dialing. I told the operator we were inside the old recreation club beside the walking path. I gave her the name that was still painted on the reception wall. I said two men had attacked us, one had a gun, and he'd fired it. She asked where the men were. I said one was in the empty pool and the other had left in a blue van. She asked for the street. I knew the street the access drive came from, but I didn't know the building's number. I gave her the nearest intersection and described the open gate. She said officers were coming. She asked whether we could get out to the street safely. I looked through the glass beside the entrance. The van's headlights were turning into the drive. I told her the other man was back. Miles had seen it too. He pushed away from the table and moved behind the reception counter. I joined him, taking the phone with me. The counter had a solid front. We crouched beneath it, squeezed between a low shelf and a cupboard with no doors. I turned the volume down and held the phone against my ear. I could hear the operator asking whether the driver was armed. I told her he had a metal bar. I couldn't remember whether I'd already said that. The van stopped outside. Its engine stayed on. I heard the driver's door close, then the side entrance open. He called for Curtis. There was no answer he could hear from the front room. The driver came farther in. His shoes stopped on the other side of the counter. I could see the lower part of his trousers through the gap at the end. He put something on the table. Then he called again, louder. Curtis answered from the pool. The driver hurried past the counter and into the hallway. Miles put his good hand around my forearm. We stayed still until we heard the outside door at the back move. Then Miles pointed toward the entrance. I told the operator we were leaving the building, then switched to speaker and turned the volume back up so I could help Miles. She said officers were close. I didn't ask how close. Miles stood first, using the counter for support, and I helped him around the end. The front door hadn't been locked. We got through it and went past the van, keeping it between us and the windows. I could see the opening to the public path. I could also see the wider access drive leading toward the street. I took the drive. I wasn't getting between those fences again. It was farther to the houses that way, but there was room for a police car to reach us. We made it about halfway before the driver came out. He saw us immediately. He shouted for us to stop. I told Miles to keep going and tried to pull him faster. His injured side kept folding toward me whenever he put weight on it. I had the phone in my left hand and his shirt in my right. The operator was saying something, but I couldn't hear it over the driver coming toward us and Miles struggling to breathe. I let go of his shirt so we wouldn't both fall. I told him to get to the street. Then I turned around. The driver had the bar. He swung it before he was close enough to hit me, and I stumbled backward trying to stay out of reach. He grabbed my open jacket with his left hand. I twisted out of one sleeve, but the other caught at my wrist. The phone dropped onto the drive. I heard the operator's voice coming from somewhere near my shoe. He hit my ribs. The pain was immediate and made it impossible to get a full breath. I went down on one knee. He still had the jacket, and he pulled me toward him to swing again. I put both arms around his waist because there wasn't anything else I could reach. We fell sideways onto the drive. He was heavier than me. His knee pressed into my stomach and he got one arm free. I caught the sleeve of that arm with both hands. I knew the bar was in it. He drove his other forearm against my throat. I couldn't hold him off. and breathe at the same time. I looked past his shoulder and saw the open entrance to the building. I thought about how easily he could drag me back through it once I stopped moving. Something struck the side of his head. He jerked away from me. Miles was standing above us. He'd taken my water bottle from his jacket pocket and was holding it by the neck. It was still nearly full. He hit the driver again, awkwardly, with his good hand. The driver released my throat and pushed Miles backward. Miles fell onto the drive beside us. The driver tried to get up, but I kept hold of his sleeve. I couldn't have told you what I thought I was accomplishing. I only knew that if he got to Miles, Miles couldn't protect himself. Then there was a car at the entrance to the drive. I saw bright lights across the pavement. Somebody shouted to drop the weapon. The driver tried to pull his arm free, and I held on harder because I thought he was raising the bar again. The voice told me to let go. It took hearing that twice before I understood the person was talking to me. I released his sleeve and rolled away. The driver started to stand, saw the officers coming toward him, and stopped. The bar fell onto the pavement. He put his hands out. One officer held him there while the other moved me farther back. I tried to get up to show them where Miles was, but my legs wouldn't hold me. They had to ask me several questions, more than once. I kept pointing toward the building and saying there was a gun in the pool. An officer crouched beside me and made me look at him. He said they knew. More officers had arrived. Someone was already with Miles. That was when I finally stopped trying to get up. The call from my phone was still connected. The operator had heard the struggle and the gunman's name when the driver called for him. She had our location before we left the building. I learned afterward that one of the officers was in the building. I heard the gunman's name when the nearby residents had also reported the shot. The officers hadn't arrived by luck. We'd given them enough to find us, and they came while we were still outside. Curtis was arrested at the bottom of the pool. He hadn't reached the pistol. His leg had broken in two places, and he'd also fractured his pelvis. He needed to be lifted out. I didn't watch them do it. I was in an ambulance by then, trying to answer questions without moving my jaw. The driver was arrested in the drive. Neither of them escaped that night. I had two cracked ribs, cuts inside my mouth, and a lot of bruising around my throat. My upper arm was swollen from the first blow. There were small cuts across my cheek from the concrete fragments, but the bullet hadn't touched me. Miles needed surgery on his hand. The fall from the table had badly bruised his hip, which explained why he'd had so much trouble walking. We were both kept in the hospital. My manager came the next morning because I'd missed my shift and hadn't answered his calls. By then, the police had already spoken to the hotel. He stood beside the bed with a paper cup of coffee and said I didn't have to worry about work. I started trying to tell him about a tray of potatoes I'd left in the walk-in cooler. He interrupted and said he'd find it. It was the first time since the attack that I'd seen him. I was in a daze. I was in a daze. I was in a daze. I realized I wasn't required to solve every problem in front of me. The investigators explained more over the following weeks. Curtis had previously done maintenance work at the club. He knew the building, knew the path stayed open, and still had access to the side entrance. The limited power inside was supposed to keep part of the property heated while it stood empty. The men hadn't built some hidden underground place. They were using rooms the owner believed were locked and unoccupied. They had taken money from both our accounts. The police recovered some of it in the van. There were also items that belonged to two other adult men who had reported being robbed in that part of town. Those men had been released after the assaults. I was glad to learn that. For a while, I'd imagined a much worse explanation for everything we hadn't seen. That didn't mean Curtis had told us the truth about what came next. The driver had my key and my address in his car. I had to go to the police station. I had security guards. I had Sometimes people refused him. Sometimes they stayed on the main road. The two men moved on when that happened. They were looking for somebody alone, who had a reason to keep walking and would accept company from another apparent target. Curtis had used his real first name. I found that more upsetting than if he'd invented one. He hadn't felt any need to hide it from me. The case took over a year to finish. I gave a statement more times than I can remember, and eventually testified. Miles did too. Sitting in the same room as Curtis was harder than I expected. With a clean shirt on, he looked exactly like the person I'd met on the sidewalk. I had to keep looking at the lawyer asking the questions so I wouldn't stop answering. Both men were convicted. Each received a prison sentence of more than 20 years. There wasn't an unidentified third person or another vehicle that disappeared from the case. It had been the two of them. The police recovered the gun, the bar, our belongings, and the money. They had the emergency call and the other victims' accounts. By the time the sentences were handed down, there was very little left for either man to dispute. I stayed in the same apartment. For a while I needed rides home from work, and I accepted them without spending the whole journey apologizing. Eventually I bought another car. I still walked during the day. I didn't want every ordinary thing I'd done before that night to become something I was afraid of, although it took time to manage that. Miles was still recovering from another hand operation when I saw him outside the courthouse after the sentencing. He eventually got full use of it back, but that afternoon he struggled with the wrapper on his sandwich. We'd gone to get lunch before heading home. I reached across to help, then stopped, because I didn't know whether he'd want me to. He pushed it towards me, and told me to open it. We ate and talked about work for a while. The waitress came back to ask whether we wanted anything else, and Miles checked his watch. He had somewhere to be that afternoon. We paid separately and stood up. He'd parked around the corner and offered me a ride. I accepted. At my place, he waited until I had the door open before he drove away. I remember raising my hand to him and noticing that it wasn't shaking. It hadn't done that for a while, by then. I just hadn't noticed until that afternoon. Thank you.