The Watch – Part 76:

I stopped in my tracks and watched him advance. He stopped a good couple of feet away and raised his weapon, which I could see clearly now was just a bat. He looked angry. I could see the red in his eyes.

‘Can I help you?’ I asked calmly.

‘Money. Now,’ he said sharply, raising his weapon up and pointing it closer to my face.

‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid,’ I said to him. He screwed up his face and said.

‘You don’t have a choice. Money. Now.’ His hand without the weapon was shacking violently. Was he nervous or was he under some kind of influence? His speech was audible, and his eyes were bright. Was he suffering from some kind of side effect, or was he suffering from withdrawal symptoms?

‘I can help you?’ I said as reassuringly as I could.

‘You give me money or so help me you’re going to regret it,’ he said stepping closer. I held my ground, although I was nervous. My hands were either side of me. I couldn’t reach my watch and activate the necessary commands to get myself out of this sticky situation, and I just know that by making any kind of movement, he’s going to think that I’m about to attack him and therefore attack me in the process, even if my movements are towards my money.

‘You don’t want to do this?’ I said.

‘Shut up,’ he shouted. There was no one about to turn their heads towards us. On this road stood just the two of us.

‘OK. OK,’ I said. I wanted to give off the illusion that I was going to give him what he wants. In fact… I have a plan. I reached into my pockets and pulled out my wallet, complete with my credit card and some money. Not much, but he doesn’t care how much it is, he just wants it.

‘Now, put it on the floor and walk away,’ he said, stepping even closer so that his weapon nearly skimmed my nose. I took a step back and turned on the balls of my heels, getting ready to walk away. As I was walking, I activated the necessary settings on my watch, giving me the speed I need to catch him off guard. I changed my clothes. He might have seen that for all I know because my back was turned, but that didn’t matter. When I turned around once more, I saw that he was walking in the other direction, having not noticed my transformation. I ran after him, catching him off guard by appearing in front of him. He stopped in his tracks and looked at me funny.

‘How did you do that?’ he demanded.

‘I believe you have a wallet that doesn’t belong to you,’ I said with authority.

‘And what are you going to do about it, freak,’ he said raising his weapon up. In an instant, I became the new owner of that weapon. He stood there, looking at his hands with confusing thoughts.

‘That,’ I said simply chucking the bat away so that he wouldn’t be able to reach it or try and attack me for it back. It clattered to the ground and rolled away, eventually coming to a stop by someone’s front wall. He watched it come to a rest, knowing that it would be a waste to try and retrieve it.

‘You think that you’re tough,’ he said spitefully. ‘You think that you are going to get me to do whatever you want by just threatening.’

‘No one’s threatening anyone except you,’ I said. ‘Now, kindly hand over that guy’s wallet and everything will be fine.’

‘If you want it,’ he said, ‘you have to come and get it.’ Both his hands were shaking violently now. I really didn’t want to take the wallet by force, but he’s giving me no choice. I’ve asked him nicely twice and he’s not having any of it, so I have no other option but to take it by force, and if that is what he wants me to do, then he’s going downtown.

‘Very well,’ I said before I made my move. Moving at incredible speed, before he could even react to anything around him, I picked him up and ran straight towards the police station. There were a couple of people walking the streets, either going to or from home. I made sure that I didn’t run straight past them as that would give me even more attention than I already have and I’m struggling to cope with that. I took a much longer route than just straight down the road, ducking through alleyways, up side roads, making sure that I didn’t meet anyone. However, not meeting anyone is something that I knew was too much to ask. I did run past someone who stopped and look around, wondering what on Earth that was, but I was gone before he could focus on any of that properly.

Finally reaching the police station, I stopped by the front door with him on my back. He was shocked into silence. I disliked what I’m doing, but I knew there was no other way. Now that I stopped running, his body weight started to build up on my shoulder, forcing me to go that little bit further and enter the police station at super speed, where I suddenly appeared in front of the receptionist who looked startled at the fact that a man carrying another man just, magically, appeared out of thin air.

‘Ma-am,’ I said, putting him down. ‘This man tried and successfully rob a man on the streets, taking his wallet. He threatened to beat him with a bat if he didn’t comply.’ The woman behind the desk didn’t say anything. She was too speechless to do anything, but eventually she managed to string a sentence together. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one.

‘You’re him,’ she said, standing up.

‘Ma-am. This man needs to be dealt with accordingly. I believe that he is under some kind of substance, but you will have to run tests to prove that, however, his violent shakes of his hands indicate either side effects or withdrawal symptoms. I understand that this is a lot to take in right now, but please understand that this needs to be taken care of right away. Thank you. Now, if you would excuse, me I have to take this wallet back to the poor person who he took it from.’ And I ran out of the police station, leaving him in the hands of those who were better off dealing with such business. They don’t know that he took the wallet from me, but that didn’t matter.

I came to a stop in some alleyway before returning my clothes back to normal, everyday wear, and heading home. I could have easily just run home, but I risked so much already out in the open that I didn’t want to risk that again, just in case anyone is there to witness it. For all I know, someone could have seen me change there and then earlier, but that was a risk that I should have thought of before. Now, if there are any consequences, I will just have to deal with them. But for now, I’ll just go about my life as if nothing happened. As I walked past the spot where the incident happened, I looked around to see if there was anyone around before picking up the bat and finishing my journey home.

Arriving home, I unlocked the door and stepped inside. I did feel happy about myself after that. One less person to cause trouble on the streets. I leaned the bat up against the wall behind the door before closing it.

‘Now I wait for Amy to call,’ I said. But in the meantime, even though that I’m going to be finding out all that information with Amy later on, I can’t help but want to do some researching myself and find out as much information as I can about the activities that I got up to. Sometime in the future, I’m going to go back in time to next year and save a bunch of people, but is there anything else? There has to be considering there are so many websites and people talking about me all over the internet.

Does this mean what I think it means? That I was there before I even acquired the watch.

No. I’m not going to do anything until I’m with Amy. I need to know all of what I can find, but if I’m with Amy when doing so, I can make sure that she doesn’t get herself into anything she’s not going to be able to get herself out of.

I could phone Tom and see if he would like to hang out here for a while, but I wouldn’t want to up and leave.

I guess the only option I have is to sit here and wait.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)