Russell's cell phone jittered and buzzed for the third time. The piercing beep of Tuesday's garbage truck shook him from his snooze button routine, and his eyelids cracked.
The phone in his hand read 9:35 a.m.
"Shit!" Russell's eyes popped open completely, and he willed his arms to move him upwards.
He looked at the phone one more time as his body shuddered into motion. His arms cleared the bedsheets, but his feet weren't as graceful. Rather than meeting the cold tile floor face first, he recovered at the last moment and sprinted to the restroom.
"Shit! Shit!"
Ten minutes and as many expletives later, Russell was running down the sidewalk. Soreness pulsed through his ankle, and he cursed the day he decided that walking to work was healthier than owning a car or trusting public transit.
"What am I gonna tell her this time?" She thinks I must stay out late partying, but I don't do things like that. Everything is so much better on the Internet… His mind wandered to the dozens of illicit pictures sent to him last night from a new contact. Guess I should have gone to sleep before 4.
"She hates my excuses for being late…"
A poor decision to cross the street before the crosswalk put him in the path of an oncoming bus.
The bus horn blared making this the second time a large vehicle had startled him today. Russell twisted, and the sore ankle gave way. He tried to get up using his good foot, but fear plastered his gut and paralyzed his legs. His fingernails dug and caught little of the smooth asphalt road. The bus lights were twin stars despite the morning sun peeking between the buildings.
"God, this can't be it! Shit!"
A hand snatched him from the street and deposited him onto the sidewalk. The bus honked its horn again as it passed. Russell sighed and steadied himself on an empty bike rack. I made it, he thought. The fear receded from his insides, but the knot of stress remained. His legs and arms shook.
He clapped a hand on the shoulder of his rescuer, a man with dark hair, green eyes, and a knowing smile.
"Thank ya, sir. I really appreciate you shoving me out of the way of that—" Russell's words were cut short, and his torso pitched forward from the blow to his midsection. He fell backwards and slumped against a wall next to a dumpster. The fear returned, but this time it spilled from a gaping hole in his stomach.
The rescuer stepped back and admired a blood-covered knife. The blade curved with thorny serrations.
"Oh, God! What—?" Though he was washed in pain and blood, Russell's confusion came through clearly.
"Ah, I am indeed a God. If not the one you expected. Oh! That right there! Don't move!" The man pointed to Russell's face with the dripping blade. "That is what I love. The look in your eyes. You are dying, and you have no idea why!"
His bright cackle slinked through Russell's ears.
"Why did you—" Blood pooled in Russell's mouth, and he spat. "Why?"
"Well, there may be a better reason, but my favorite is Steven's blue choo-choo train." The man cleaned his knife on a spare piece of cloth pulled from his black coat before tucking both away.
Russell winced with every shallow breath he heaved. His expression grew more perplexed, farther away from reality.
"Steven...choo-choo...?"
"Yes! That blue wooden train you stole from your first best friend! You hid it behind your bed for weeks before you tossed it from the overpass to watch it smash to pieces. You laughed before you ran away. Don't you see? That's where it all started!"
Russell mustered what he could to understand the deteriorating situation. "I was six! Who are y—?" More blood stopped his question.
"I am Loki, Russell Pitch." Loki's eyes grew sharp. "Yes, you were six. Old enough to understand that what you did you did from fear. It's a shame you never learned from that experience. You're still running from your urges. Afraid to admit that you aren't in control of them."
Russell's breathing slowed and his attention was drawn somewhere beyond Loki. His thoughts wandered. Help…Where is everyone?
"You see, today I am simply a courier. Hence my personal dispatch. There are those who wish to..." Loki smiled, "speak with you. But I can offer you some information, Russell Pitch, son of John."
Loki leaned in closer.
"You're not going where you had hoped. They know about the train, and the exploitative pictures you hoard, and all those other morally unacceptable things you wished no one to ever discover. They will take you, and they will treat you accordingly. You're welcome for the bus, but I don't envy your trip."
Russell mumbled, but Loki could only make out the word "train."
The light behind Russell's eyes faded, and his body went slack. His mouth hung open. Blood soaked his clothing and the sidewalk beneath him.
Loki scribbled a note on a piece of paper that had fallen from the dumpster and tossed it into the pool of blood.
And in his last sane words he spoke of choo-choo trains.