Baumann sat in his BMW and watched a man shout his good byes as he left a bar in Queens New York. He followed the man along the street. “Yeah, that's you... you fucker!” he growled.
In a flash he was back in the same area in 1993. Tommie Baumann and two other young boys sang as they walked home along the empty sidewalks on a calm fall night. They crowded into a call box and pretended to call someone.
The neighbourhood bully Ian Ritchie walked past the call box and then turned around, opened the door and grabbed Baumann by the neck, pulling him out of the box, then said, “What were you looking at fuckface!”
“Nothing,” answered a shocked and trembling Baumann.
Ritchie pulled back his fist about to punch Baumann, but a siren scream made him push the young boy back into the call box.
The shouts of a large gang of youngsters brought Baumann out of his reverie and he pulled up beside Ritchie and lowered the front passenger-side window.
“You'd better get in fella!” he shouted.
“Thanks,” said Ritchie climbing into the passenger's seat. “I live up on Huron Street.”
“Okay,” said Baumann
Baumann shifted into drive and the car eased along the road.
“I recognise your face,” said Baumann as he switched his attention from the gang to Ritchie.
“Yeah! I'm well known around here. I don't recognise you.” Ritchie said shrugging his shoulders.
“Oh, come on now Ian Ritchie. Twenty-three years ago, you asked me what I was looking at when I was playing with some friends in a call box.”
“I know nothing about that and... look thanks for the ride, but I'll be getting out now.”
“Oh no fuckface you're going nowhere, in fact you will be with me into eternity,” said Baumann in an other-worldly growl as his eye colour changed to red.
“Right! Stop this fucking car!” Ritchie shouted as he pulled on the door handle, but nothing happened. He rammed an elbow into the window smashing the glass and then tried to clamber out.
But Baumann gunned the car, and Ritchie fell back into the passenger's seat.
“You crazy fucker!” shouted Ritchie as he grabbed the steering wheel sending the car over the sidewalk and into the side of a building.
After watching the crash from the side-walk Baumann walked around and ripped off the wrecked passenger's door. He pulled the dazed and bleeding Ritchie from the car. Sirens heading in their direction made Baumann step back into the shadows of the building with Ritchie in his arms. Then, with his back against the wall, he slid up the six-storey building. When he reached the top, he stepped back onto the flat roof with the groaning Ritchie.
“Come on Mr Ritchie, wake up,” said Baumann holding the injured man in an iron-like grip over the side of the building.
Ritchie screamed as he came too and realised his plight. He stared down in horror as the police investigated the smashed car below where a small crowd of onlookers had gathered. He then looked up into the crimson eyes of Baumann.
“Okay, Mr Ritchie here's the deal: you come and join me and live forever, or you die and take your chances.”
Another squad car pulled in behind the first.
“So, what's it going to be Mr Ritchie?”
“I'm coming with you,” groaned Ritchie.
“Good,” said Baumann with a grin as he released his grip on the man's neck.
A horrified questioning look flashed across Ritchie's face as he hovered for a few seconds.
“Oh yes I forgot to add that you have to be dead to join me.” Baumann said as he watched Ritchie succumb to gravity and plunge toward the wrecked BMW.
52
The crowd, including the police officers, jumped as the body of Ritchie crashed into the roof of the car.
“What the...?” shouted one officer amid the screaming crowd.
“Where did he come from?” a young man asked no one in particular.
Another officer called for an ambulance while looking up and around.
“Jeez, is it going to start raining bodies?” wondered a middle-aged woman.
The body which had been lying dead on the roof of the car moved. First an arm rose into the air and tensed the muscles followed by a leg. Then Ritchie raised his head up and groaned as he moved it from side to side.
The crowd gasped as he rolled over and jumped onto the side-walk. He looked around at the crowd of on-lookers and shrugged his shoulders, “been arguing with the wife again!” He then strode quickly along the sidewalk and disappeared into an alleyway.
“Hey, wait a minute!” shouted a police officer, who had recovered from confusion and ran after him.
But after searching the alleyway he returned shaking his head, “don't know how we're going to write this one up!”
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