Fugitive

Chapter 8

I knew there was no way he could actually see me. There were no lights on in the car. No street lights directly over me. All he would see is an empty car parking in the street, like any others. Even so I didn't move a muscle while he stood there for the next couple of minutes. When he was content he turned, and headed back to his desk. I let out a small breath. 

About an hour in they all stopped what they were going and left. They all came back with cups of coffee so I can only assume they were in the break room. When morning came, they all changed shifts. The cops that were there replaced with others, who had all bought coffee from a café on the way there. 

I had been awake for quite a few hours now watching them in the dark, taking notes. I didn't have anything to do for the day. There was hardly a chance of getting in there at night, much less the day, so there was no need to stick around. I needed to clean up. The dried blood was making my hair crusty. My 12 hour nap had done me good. There was still a dull ache in my head but otherwise I had no other concussion symptoms. 

I pulled on a different hoodie, with much difficulty I might add with my shoulder being pretty much out of order. There was a public bathroom down the road. It was still pretty early so there were no tourists or many people at all out yet. I opened the door and locked it behind me promptly. I had to get the hoodie off again now. Another mission in itself. It wasn't ideal. The bathroom, I mean. The grimy mirror and dull lighting didn't make much of a medical room. I peeled back the bandage on my shoulder. It was looking okay considering. The stitches looked even worse than I thought they would but they still seemed to be working ok so I didn't worry much about it. I used some toilet paper and ran it under the tap water to wash away most of the blood that had crusted onto my arm. It took a bit of scrubbing. Obviously, the tap water wasn't ideal for the actual wound. 

I washed that with some disinfectant and wrapped another fresh bandage around it, which was difficult with one arm. I had no use for the used bandages so I discarded them in the bin, trying to push them to the bottom. It felt so much better to be clean. I moved on to my head. Letting the tap run, I stuck my head under the flow and massaged my scalp. The water ran down the drain a faded red color. I kept going until the water ran clear and put some disinfectant on that the best I could as well. As far as I could tell the actual cut wasn't too bad. Small, but deeper than I expected by the feel on it. It was concealed by my hair, so I wouldn't have to worry about that. 

I moved on to my arm, washing away the blood, applying more disinfectant and putting another bandage on. Same steps as before. I repeated this on my hand, but without the bandage. It didn't need it. It was every smaller than I'd thought. Without much to do I stayed parked in the lot beside the public bathrooms. There were no outdoor cameras that I could see, so I thought I'd be safe sitting there for a bit. I felt fresher. While in the bathroom I'd also given everything else a bit of a wash. Not an important detail really. 

I returned to the police station that night. It was the same. Same people there. Same jobs. Same coffee break. Everything was so similar I felt like I was watching the night before on repeat. Routine was good I suppose. I hadn't slept since the early hours of yesterday so I quickly fell asleep on the watch. When I woke up it was nearly light out. The sun was rising, seemingly sharing my presence with the world. I started the car and drove off, kicking myself for falling asleep. 

Something took me to an old football field. It was downtown. Our team used to go there for kicks on the afternoons we had free from practice. Practice took the fun out of football. The only reason any of us kept playing was those nights at the field. Kept us sane with all the pressure of college scouts and dreams of the big leagues. Obviously, I never made the cut. I've been told I could have. If I had focused more. Truth was I didn't enjoy it by the end of high school. I was still good at it but it had become something of a chore. Natural talent they called it. I was captain for my last season. Naturally they had to let the older ones be captains. They were probably a bit better than me anyway. I filled in for a college team for one game as well. I'm not even sure if that's allowed but they were down players due to some big flooding or something.