Chapter 22
I could feel the presence of someone or something with me in the hallway. My heart beat fast as it crept into my throat and then to my parched mouth. The sweat on my palms made it difficult to hold onto my bag. What was it? What was with me? I quickened my pace.
Suddenly as if I were an inflatable doll, I was tossed to the side smashing hard and heavily into the wall. My body made a heavy thud that reverberated in the empty hall. As I slid to the floor fear raced through me and gripped my mind.
“Who is it? What do you want?” I cried out.
Again I was lifted and then rammed into the wall on the other side of the hall. My suitcase went sailing down the waxed floor toward the light at the other end. Fortunately, I had placed all my data, research, Russo’s diary copy and dozens of thumb drives in my back pack that was secured to my body.
I scrambled to my feet and ran towards the light at the end of the hall. The presence kept pace right behind me. I could feel its hot breath closer and closer to the back of my neck. Fear crept through my mind as a strange smell like rotten eggs wafted around my face. I knew the smell but didn’t want to believe it. I could smell sulfur.
I ran by my suitcase and bent to scoop it up when the piece of luggage leaped into the air and slammed into my rib cage. The air in my lungs was forced from my body in a loud gasp while I stumbled over my own feet. I kept my balance but with each step my knees grew wobbly and weak like the gravity beneath me continually increased its pull.
Without warning I saw a murky form move onto me and then felt a heavy weight on my chest and then something like thin bones wrapping around my throat. I hadn’t caught my breath from the flying suitcase and now the remainder of it was being choked out of my body. What was this? What was happening to me?
My mind started to cloud like a dark shroud was being pulled over my head. For some reason that word shroud popped into my mind and with that the image of the crucified Christ that had been imprinted on it. In the vision the nail pierced hands were free of the cloth and they reached toward me.
“Jesus,” I choked out just before I felt a rush of wind and heard the sound of colliding bodies. I couldn't see anything but the sound was unmistakable. I had heard it so many times during my college football days when two linemen charged each other coming together in a powerful thump. As soon as I heard the colliding bodies the weight lifted off me and the choking fingers untangled from around my throat.
I laid on my back sucking in fresh air. I wanted to stay there. My exhausted, aching body needed rest and my empirical mind needed to figure out what had happened but the intense fear that still raced through my body forced me to my feet. I grabbed my suitcase and ran down the hall. It wasn’t until I reached the end that I stopped to take stock of my appearance.
My hat and wig had fallen off somewhere in the hall and I wasn’t about to go back for them. I brushed my fingers through my red hair trying to straighten it the best I could. It was then that I felt the bruises that must have lined my body. I wasn’t sure but I had a feeling that at least one rib was broken.
What had happened? What had attacked me? I had a feeling but I didn’t want to think about. Instead I needed to get to my wife at the car rental booth.