Incident after Three

Mitch was done taking in calls at two-thirty in the morning. She had been waiting for Bogs outside the call center building. Almost thirty minutes had gone past already. She was not supposed to go home alone at three. It was risky. But Bogs was insistent.

Mitch waited at Meadow Street for a taxi. It was past three. She noticed a hooded guy approaching from across the street. She should have moved away, but the guy ran fast to her. He held her slim arm and declared a “hold-up”.

Mitch trembled in fear. She kneed the guy’s groin. Mitch’s father, Gary, was a police officer. He had taught her self-defense. The guy had an ice-pick. He tried to cut through her arm. She evaded it and punched him in the face. The ice-pick fell and so the guy.

Mitch ran away. The guy stood up and chased after her. He ran so fast that at the end of Meadow Street he captured her. He punched her in the stomach. She fell and crunched like a fetus on the pavement. It was so much pain that she couldn’t breathe. Her mind was busy thinking of the pain, and so she didn’t see where he had gone to. Suddenly, he knocked her head off with a rock and all she saw was totally black.

***

Mitch was awakened. She could barely see the faces of her family members. She felt numb in her face. She realized her right eye was bandaged. She asked for a mirror and cried when she saw someone unfamiliar in the mirror.

“What happened to me?” Mitch questioned everyone while she was sobbing.

“You were in a coma for two weeks now,” her teary-eyed mother said.

Mitch recalled the last time she had been conscious. Her mother told her everything.

The physician said her skull had multiple fractures and that the only way to fix the skull was through Cranioplasty. That would mean they needed an enormous amount of money for the surgical operation.

Gary used all his connections to find the culprit who had almost taken his daughter’s life. He made the area of the incident under surveillance for a month.

Before the last day of the surveillance, a girl stayed in the same place, waiting for a taxi. A shadow could be seen in the street across Meadow Street. A hooded guy behind the electrical post. The girl had been there for fifteen minutes. He walked past the girl, who noticed him. She walked away briskly. He ran after her and pulled out something in his pocket. An ice-pick. The girl hastened. When she reached the next street, a man in a black leather jacket blocked her way. It was from Gary.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m a police officer.” Gary whispered. He pushed the girl to the dark part of the sidewalk. He pulled out a Magnum 357 from his side. He cautiously aimed it at the approaching person. “Freeze!” he shouted. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you. Raise your hands.”

The hooded guy didn’t move.

“I said raise your hands!” Gary moved warily, gun pointing at him. He groped for the handcuff tucked at his back. “Drop slowly!”

The hooded guy fell to his knees and dropped face down.

Gary threw the handcuff to him. “Handcuff yourself!”

The hooded guy did what Gary said.

Gary drew near and kicked him. The hooded guy turned supine and groan in pain. Gary took the hood off. He was dumbfounded.

The girl moved to them. She was shocked as well. “You? Why did you do that to me?” she muttered.

Gary remained in his position. “You did that to Mitch.” It was a statement. “You were the one who almost killed my daughter,” he yells infuriatingly.

Bogs beamed a rude smile. “Your daughter is a bitch!” He turned to the girl. “You’re a bitch too!” He laughed raucously, like the devil.

Gary’s sight darkened. He pointed the gun to Bogs, whose cracking laugh went on and on and on.

And so the Magnum 357 roared.