Chase

I’m an athlete. You should know that first. Actually, I’m a former pro athlete, but I like to keep myself in shape even though I’m not playing any more. There was a morning recently, fresh and with a spotless blue sky. It was slightly chilly but with the promise of warmth later in the afternoon. A gentle breeze brushed across the rolling hills surrounding my place, and I decided it would be a perfect day to go for a long bike ride. I lived about six miles from town, so I had it in my mind to ride to town and back. Morning had only just broken upon the day, so I figured there would be only a few people milling about so early and that would make for a peaceful ride. I donned my gear and whipped out my bike. I gathered myself, strapped on my helmet and before stepping out the door, as was customary now, I jumped, touched ‘Barney’ on the beak and said, “Tag, you’re it!’ Barney was a stuffed barn owl. I had found him alive, injured, and flopping around on the front porch the day after I moved into my house. I kept him, got him back to health, named him Barney, and when he died about eight months later, I had become so attached to him I had him stuffed and he now ‘flew’ above the front door. After the tag, I went outside, mounted the bike and started down the path leading away from the porch.

The path from the porch to the highway leading to town was about two hundred yards long, and as I was about to turn onto the highway, looking both ways for traffic, I saw someone on a nice, black bike about a hundred yards to my right. The guy on the bike was big and actually kind of menacing-looking, but I paid him no mind as I continued on my way. I thought it odd, him just standing there, straddling his bike, but I told myself maybe he was resting. I headed down the highway at a leisurely pace, taking in the morning and enjoying the feel of the wind against my face and the ruffling of my shirt against my skin.

After a couple miles, having forgotten about the guy on the black bike, I was putting on a bit of speed when I heard the familiar sound of a bike shifting gears and looked back behind me. There he was, still about a hundred yards back. He had an intent look, and when our eyes met, his expression changed and an odd smile spread across his face. I turned forward again thinking, ‘what the heck is up with this guy?’ I looked back again, and he was pedaling faster. This guy was chasing me!

Instinctively, I sped up, and next thing I knew, the chase was on. I kicked into a higher gear, then higher, then higher again, but every time I looked back, there this guy was. And he was gaining on me a bit. I was into the highest gear and was probably going 40 miles an hour as I approached the edge of town. I still had plenty of stamina, and was only a little winded. There was no exit to this highway. It simply turned into Rock Road Drive just past a gas station. I was going to need to slow down at some point because I would soon encounter intersections. The problem was, this guy didn’t slow down at all! As the intersection of Rock Road Drive and Werner Street was coming up, I got an idea. Looking back, I saw the guy was about 40 yards behind me and closing quickly. I moved all the way to the left edge of the road. I acted like I was about to speed up, then hit the brakes as hard as I could without sending myself over the handlebars, and made as hard a right turn as I could onto Werner street. It worked, because as I turned, I heard the guy whiz past, not able to make the turn. Then two things happened: First, I heard his tires sliding as he hit his brakes. Second, because my turn wasn’t as smooth as I had hoped, I blew out the front tire and lost a bit of control of the bike and hit a curb, which sent me flying over the handlebars. Fortunately, there was a wide, grassy road verge between the curb and the sidewalk, and I flipped and landed on my back in the grass. This didn’t hurt (much) but knocked a little of the wind out of me, so it took me a few seconds to recover and get up.

My bike was finished, and I made my way to my feet and looked back, but didn’t see the guy yet. That lasted about two seconds, as suddenly, he came barreling around the corner. Then he did a weird thing. He literally jumped off his moving bike, letting it roll on across the street and bang into a bus stop bench. He then took up the chase on foot! I turned and started running, too.

I ran hard, and I mean hard. I figured I had the stamina to outlast this guy, if not outrun him. I ran around corners and crossed streets and circled buildings and weaved around parked cars, if there were any. Presently, I came to Merlot Park, a hilly park with a lot of trees. I ran up and down hills and through thickets of trees and through rows of hedges and bushes, and yet this guy kept up the chase. We were both panting, and I could hear his footsteps behind me, but dared not to look back for fear of losing ground. So, I ran.

As I approached the entrance to Merlot Park, I took a sharp left, darted partway down a walking path and across a tulip bed. There was no way out here, so I scaled the seven foot-high chain-link fence and kept running. I ran up 12th Street, down Fort Sumter Avenue, up the alley that ran parallel to Sycamore Street, and still this guy came! We were now running through a neighborhood, and I ran between houses, weaved again around some cars, crossed front and back lawns, turned corners, even ran partway down the middle of some streets and still I heard those footsteps!

But now, I could hear him breathing! He didn’t ‘feel’ any closer, but his breathing was louder. He was tiring! I had outlasted him, as I knew I could. I was winded myself, of course, but I wasn’t tired. No, not yet. Coming out of a subdivision, I encountered a gas station, and ran through it, weaving and zig-zagging between the pumps. Crossing the street, I hit stride and sprinted up the long, straight road that was Basil Road. It was about a 15-degree incline, and I figured this would further tire out my pursuer for sure. His breathing was louder, but he still chased me with determination.

Who was this guy? Where did he come from? Had he been waiting outside my place to come after me? What the heck did he want? Why was he chasing me? Was he going to rob me, or worse yet, kill me? Did I know him and somehow forgot him and therefore should know why he was chasing me? Or did I happen to be in the right place at the wrong time and this guy is just some lunatic and decided, in the murky fog of a twisted mind, to run me down? Maybe he’d done something, like killed someone, and thought I had seen it or saw at least something and it was his intent that I not live to tell anyone. But then, if anything like that was true, why did he abandon his bike and start chasing me on foot? He had to have known he would have had a better chance on his bike. I could think of nothing that made any sense, but that didn’t stop what was happening from happening. It was happening! I was being chased by some nut-case and I was running for dear life, it seemed. Should I just stop and confront the guy? While I’m thinking and running, he’s still chasing. On it goes.

At the crest of the hill that is Basil Road, the road levels off then proceeds down at an incline steeper than the one we had just ran up. I wasn’t quite prepared for this, and I took a weird step and slightly twisted my ankle. Oh no! It wasn’t terribly painful, but it was enough so to make me have to slow down a bit. By this time, we were downtown. Then I made a grave mistake. I darted down an alley between two buildings and too late realized that it dead-ended at a 12-foot high brick wall! I was caught. There were no doors on either side I dared to try. It looked like I would have to confront him after all, and my ankle was hurting a little more. About 20 feet from the wall, I dropped all my speed, stopped, turned to face the guy and bent over with my hands on my knees, panting hard. He was panting even harder, and just like I did, he slowed, but kept coming toward me. I looked up, yes, up at him, for he was huge! He must have been about 6’ 5”, muscular but a little fat too. He was breathing so hard he was making sounds. I’m backing up slowly and he’s approaching just as slowly, as if studying me, figuring out whether or not he could take me. I spoke first.

“What—wha—what the hell do you want? Why are you chasing me?”

He said nothing yet, but kept stepping closer. I was maybe five feet from the wall and figured this was as good a place as any to stand my ground, so I stopped and squared off against him. “I said, what do you want? You stay away from be before I have to—”

At that instant, with a sudden, unexpectedly quick two or three steps forward, he was within arm’s reach, and lifted his large right hand out as if to push me. I braced myself to not let him push me backward, and definitely not down!

Instead of pushing though, he reached forward and lightly tapped me on the left shoulder and said, “Tag, you’re it!”

With that, he turned quickly and took off like a frightened rabbit on fire, back down that alley as fast as he could. As I watched him get to the end of the alley and take a sudden right turn and disappear, I sat down on the ground, and cried.

THE END