The Thrill Of The Chase

“Can’t you see it? Can’t you people see that thing?”

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Duane has gone running through a crowd screaming at people. It is also not the first time he has done it in this park. It has happened so often that most of the people who regularly use the park are actually ignoring his seemingly psychotic outburst in the middle of a sunny, summer afternoon.

The thing started chasing him about three months ago. Every other day, almost like clockwork, he would hear a scratching at his door. His pulse would race as he looked through the peephole in his apartment door and be eye to eye with whatever that thing was. Sometimes he would even see his neighbor across the hall in 4F getting home from work at 10:00 am just as the thing was sitting in the hall looking back through the peephole.

“Jerry! Jerry! Jesus Christ, Jerry! Get in your apartment now! Lock the door! Don’t you see it?”

“Duane, you jackass. I keep telling you the same thing every fucking day! There is NOTHING at your door!”

Then Jerry slams his door closed and locks it to drift off into a land of slumber, leaving Duane to battle this thing. Whatever it is.

As the thing looks at Duane through the peephole, it starts scratching at the door again. The scratching gets louder and louder until Duane has to make a break for it out his kitchen window and down the fire escape. He runs to the window, tears open the shutters and throws up the sash. Then he scurries down the fire escape to the alley below.

Duane swears that he hears that thing burst through the door as he is heading down the fire escape. When he is at the second floor, he looks back up and there it is. Slobbering, hissing and slowly moving down the fire escape.

Duane drops to the alley and then takes off for the park. He got an apartment in that building years ago because it was across the street from the park. The regulars in the park got to know Duane as a quiet guy who liked to sit at the third bench in from the park entrance and read books with strange titles.

Duane once had someone in the park as him what “Mein Kampf” meant. It was a conversation Duane still remembers.

“Hey buddy.”

Duane slowly looked up from his hard copy of Hitler’s rambling piece of crap. “Yes.”

“What’s that yer readin’?”

“Mein Kampf.”

“Mine what? What is it about?”

“It is the book Hitler wrote while he was in prison.”

“Hitler was never in prison. He killed himself before we could catch him. And we were close.”

“The Soviets were…you know what, never mind.”

But now Duane was that crazy guy who would run into the park on a bright, sunny summer afternoon and claim that he was being stalked by something that no one else could see. Just as Duane would tell everyone to watch out, a park bench would tip over. Everyone would look at the bench and set it back up like nothing happened. As Duane would run across an open pasture in the park, the trees would rustle behind him as he warned people to get away. Everyone saw the branches move, but no one ever saw what was moving them.

He couldn’t believe no one saw it. Even though it knocked over park benches and moved tree branches, no one could see it. This time, it was being persistent. Usually, Duane could get it to run after him near the fountain area of the park where people congregated and set up merchant tables and then it would just run away. But today was different. Today, Duane was starting to run into the fountain area and it was still following him.

What did it want? What the hell was it? Could it hurt people? Could it hurt Duane? He was afraid that he was about to find out the answers to his questions and the answers would not be pretty.

The beast stops scratching at the door and cocks his head. He hears the human lifting the window and scrambling down the fire escape. He smiles. "Human fun." he thinks to himself. "Love chase. Run." He crashes through the apartment door and bounds for the window. He looks down at Duane's retreating figure.

He clambers down the fire escape, stairs into the street and across to the park. He brushes past a pedestrian who stumbles and looks down at the road to see what he tripped over.  The beast can see Duane running through the park and sets off after him. He trips over a park bench, sending it over onto its seat. The beast brushes off grass and twigs and continues his chase.

"Me love chase. Human run same place. Me love park."

The beast is not sure why Duane always runs away when he shows up. The first time he showed up, Duane never gave him a chance. He just ran away. Now the human runs every time he shows up in the hallway outside his apartment.

Duane always flees in exactly the same way--down the fire escape and into the park. "Maybe park is safe haven," the beast smirks knowing full well that if so desired, there is no safe haven. For now, he thinks, the chase is fun, even if there is no reason for it. 

Duane is nearly all the way to the other end of the park. The beast stops chasing and sits under a broad elm tree for the shade. He sits for a few moments, then blinks away from between realities. At the same time, Duane stops running as if he preternaturally knows the game is over. For now anyway. He turns robotically back toward his apartment building, trotting along with his head hanging low to avoid the stares.

"Honey, you need to confront that beast," Judy the homeless woman from under the bridge announces as he passes by. She rarely spoke to anyone other than Duane, and then only after his "attacks."

"You can see it, too?" Duane asks with a mixture of surprise and alarm. He stops by the old woman's ratty nest of clothes stolen from the Goodwill boxes in the neighborhoods around the park.

"Of course, honey. There are some of us who see things that cannot be explained by normal senses. I see the big behemoth running after you in this park. Seems like at least one of you is enjoying the thrill of the chase," Judy explains. She stuffs some of the rags into the folds of the overcoat she wears even in the heat of an August afternoon.

"No one else believes me."

"Poor baby. Old Judy knows that feeling oh so well."

"It's just so frustrating. Everyone else stares at me with pity. I'm not insane. I know there is something after me. I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel its breath on the back of my neck sometimes. It's taunting me and slowly driving me insane," Duane complains.

"Duane, there is a world so close to our own yet distinct and separate. There are some of us who can cross between these worlds. You and I, honey, are a couple of those people. And your monster, likewise, can cross into ours. Can it actually do any harm while here? I'm not sure. Maybe the thrill of the chase is all it needs to satisfy itself. Or maybe, chasing and letting go is part of the thrill."

"Like a cat playing with a mouse," Duane mutters.

"And then again, maybe they can do harm," Judy grins. Something yellow flashes in her eyes and her smile widens. Duane steps back as Judy starts to laugh. "Maybe they can do harm," Judy repeated.

The something yellow was a girl in a yellow shirt, hurdling through the air and colliding with Duane.

"I think maybe you should run now," Judy says to Duane, still laughing. "The beast is chasing you again."

Of course, Duane does just that, leaving the yellow-clad girl lying on the ground crying.

The beast stands there staring at the girl he had just thrown. He feels confused and sad. He doesn’t understand why the girl is crying. He had simply given her an airplane ride, tossing her off to Duane to catch.

The beast had always loved when his father gave him airplane rides as a boy. It seemed like a lifetime ago, living down by the river with his parents and his older brother. They were all gone now, leaving the beast with only humans to interact with. This was all the more upsetting because most humans couldn’t see him and those that could were frightened.

Maybe it was his mangy fur. Or his bright orange horns. Maybe it was the razor-sharp claws protruding from his paw-like hands. Or his droopy ears. Of course, it could be that his eyes were where human mouths were, and vice versa.

But humans had other odd-looking animal friends; dogs, and cats, and horses. They weren’t afraid of them. In fact, humans seemed to enjoy playing with animals very much.

Except for him. Humans ran away from him. This made the beast sad, and angry. Just like he is now. He’s sad that he upset the girl, and angry that she’s upset. It was such a conflict.

He gives her a hug to comfort her, accidentally tearing through her torso with his razor sharp claws. Damn. He hates when that happens.

The beast stands there dripping the small girl’s blood off his paws, lamenting this latest accident.

Judy, still standing there watching kneels next to the beast, gently touching his fur coat.

“Joseph, how many times must I tell you, you can’t be throwin’ around little girls like that?”

The beast snaps his head towards the homeless woman, staring intently for at least a minute before muttering, “Mama?”

“Joseph, how many times must I tell you, I am not your mama? I’m Judy. I live not far from you. Under the overpass near the river o’er there.”

The beast stares some more then says, “I’m sorry, mama. I didn’t mean to hurt the girl. I just wanted to give her a hug.”

“It’s okay,” Judy says. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt her. And I won’t tell anyone you did it. It’s not like they would believe me if I did. Now, you run along home. I think you’ve had too much excitement for one day.”

The beast considers heeding the old woman’s advice and going home. Then he decides to give chase to Duane once again. He needs something to make him smile. The dead girl made him extra sad. And the old woman confused him because he was almost 100 percent certain that she was his mama. But she kept saying she wasn’t.

Duane looks up to see the beast chasing him again, but this time Duane does not run. He stands toe to toe with the monster as the two get into an extended staring contest. Duane does not blink and neither does the beast. When Duane realizes that the beast is not going to do anything, he slowly turns and starts to walk out of the park.

“Where you going?” the beast questions as Duane continues to have his back to the monster.

Duane slowly turns and looks at the monster as a smile develops on his face. “You’re not real,” Duane says. “I am going home.” Judy starts laughing and just keeps repeating “Oh, Joseph is real, alright!” Duane ignores Judy, and the beast, and just slowly walks back to his apartment.

As he walks through the park, people are covering their mouths in horror and pointing at him. What is the problem? What are they looking at? At this point, Duane doesn’t care. All he cares about is getting back to his apartment and putting these nightmares behind him. Duane does not have the feeling that he is being followed, and he does not see the creature when he turns back.

As he reaches his apartment, Duane undresses down to his jockeys and then puts on a pair of pajama pants with a matching t-shirt. He doesn’t even know where his hoodie and sweatpants wind up when he takes them off. All he knows is that they are off. His hands and face are covered in mud. Blood? No, definitely mud. So he washes them off vigorously and then sits on his couch and takes in a little television.

Ten minutes after he had turned on the television, Duane hears a stern knock at this apartment door. He looks through the peephole and can see a police officer in uniform and a man in a beige trench coat.

“Mr. Hashenbreicht? This is Detective Palmer from the police department along with patrolman Williams, could you open up please?”

Duane opens the door slowly, just enough so the detective can see his face. “Yes?”

“Duane Hashenbreicht?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Hashenbreicht, there has been a murder in the park and several witnesses said that you were at the scene. May we come in?”

Duane stammers for a moment and looks back into his apartment to make sure it is clean enough for company. As he looks back, he can see his blue hoodie under a chair in his living room. That must have been where he threw it earlier. Mud? No, blood? Is that blood on his hoodie? No, it has to be mud. Duane wasn’t taking any chances. He slowly looks back to the detective with a blank look his face and just stammers “No, you can’t come in.”

“Mr. Hashenbreicht, I will get a warrant if I have to. A little girl has been murdered and several witnesses have you at the scene and say that you wandered out of the park covered in blood. Are you going to force me to get a warrant?”

This is all surreal to Duane and he tries to remember exactly what happened at the park. All he can mutter is “Yes, get a warrant.”

“Fine, Mr, Hashenbreicht. I suggest you contact your attorney.”

The detective and the patrolman left, but Duane was more confused than ever. Why was his hoodie all bloody? The beast killed the girl, not Duane. Right? Duane sat back down on the couch and tried to remember exactly what happened, but he was not sure that he was remembering what really happened.

Duane hears a couple thumps from the stairwell.

He pulls his hoodie from under the chair.  Definitely blood. But his hands were muddy when he washed them. Holding the soiled fabric under the faucet in the kitchen, the water runs red and swirls down the drain. Another loud thump startles Duane from concentrating on the blood in his hoodie. He turns and sees the beast standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

"Me sorry. Me fix," the beast hangs his head and pulls his arms from behind his back. In each hand, he holds the severed heads of both police investigators who had just been questioning Duane. They are dripping blood onto the cold tiles of the kitchen floors and there is a trail from the apartment door to the kitchen, soaking into the beige carpet.

Duane gags at the sight and tries to escape the room only to stumble into the table.

"Play chase now?" the beast questions. He drops the two heads onto the floor. They hit with a hollow smack and roll in opposite directions until both sets of lifeless eyes stare holes into Duane's visage. The beast unsheathes his fangs and roars menacingly at the human.

Duane is taken aback at first but realizes that the beast is not as scary now that he knows him a little better. The beast senses this relationship has reached its pinnacle and is sad about it. Duane was one of the funs ones. The human could really play chase very well.

"Chase? Is that what you call it? You scared the shit out of me! People think I'm crazy! They think I'm a murderer now, too! Duane shouts and motions to the severed heads on the floor and his wet and wadded hoodie in the bottom of the sink.

"Me sorry. Me like Duane. Duane fun. Play chase." the beast reiterates. He feints a lunge at the human. Duane fliches slightly but does not race for the fire escape as he had hoped. Instead, the man stares him down and actually takes a menacing step towards him.

"You've ruined my life and you want to play a game? What kind of simpleton are you? Why don't you just go away?"

The beast's entire body slumps and turns to leave. He seems smaller somehow as he lopes through the door and disappears down the hallway. In the sudden silence, Duane realizes that he is alone in his apartment with the two heads of the police detectives who were investigating him for the murder of a girl in the park. Where had things gone wrong?

Outside, the beast mopes as he walks through the park and randomly pushes over pedestrians as they passed him. Judy can see him coming and cuts off his path deeper into the park. The police have cordoned off an area where the murdered girl still lays. It would not do to have the beast tramp through the crime scene, visible or invisible.

"Oh, Joseph, what is the problem? You look so sad." Judy asks motherly. The beast is still confused by the old woman. She sounds so much like his mother, but Mama has been gone for so long. It is hard to remember he face anymore. Or Papa's. And why is she always calling him Joseph? He slumps even more and appears to have shrunk even more since leaving Duane's apartment.

"Duane no play chase," the beast sighs.

"Oh, my poor boy. I'm sure that there is someone out there ready to play chase with you. There's a whole world out there beyond the park full of people to play chase with you," Judy assures.

The beast stares into the distance. He can hear the sounds of the city. In his entire life he has never left the confines of the park. It is his home. A whole world full of people? How big is the world? He stares at the homeless woman, then cocks an ear to the world outside the park.

"Maybe more Duanes outside in world? Play chase with me?"

"Of course, Joseph. The park is only a very small part of the world, a world with billions of people ready t play chase with you."

The beast again looks at the surroundings of the park. He glances at the buildings beyond the park. They are huge. There must be lots of people just outside the park. Close enough that he can still come home. Billions of people? Is that a lot? There are a lot of people in the park. Maybe he can go just a little way outside the park.

The beast wanders down a path that leads to a busy street. There are a lot of cars and people with bags and funny hats. They’re all dressed up like they’re going to church. Many of them are getting into and out of yellow cars. There’s more yellow cars here than on the other side of the park where Duane’s apartment is.

The men here don’t look like fun at all. And the women are too frilly to run. There’s no one to chase. No Duanes.

And then out of the corner of his eye, the beast sees another Duane. He turns his head straight at him and for sure, it’s another Duane.

“Mama is so smart,” the Beast thinks to himself and smiles. “Me wonder how many other Duanes there are.”

He continues walking down the shiny street with the yellow cars and the people dressed up all funny. Every so often, he catches another Duane out of the corner of his eye and turns to face him. Whenever he does, that new Duane stares right at him and smiles as the beast smiles back.

There were three Duanes on that last block alone. Two were standing on the sidewalk right next to shiny buildings and the other was in one of the yellow cars. That Duane and him touched hands through the car window. They grinned at each other. Then the man driving the car started to yell at the beast so the beast ran away.

So far the beast has counted 14 Duanes today. Not including the real Duane who yelled at him in his apartment on the other side of the park. None of them ran from him. In fact, they all smiled at him.

“The next one, I chase,” the beast thought to himself.

The pretty street slowly got less pretty. The people weren’t dressed as nice. There weren’t as many yellow cars. And the buildings now were made out of bricks and stones. It was dingier. Gloomier. And there were no more Duanes.

The beast continued on for some time, hoping to find another Duane to chase. But eventually got frustrated.

“Duanes all went home,” the beast thought to himself. “Duanes didn’t want to play with beast.”

The beast did a 180 and headed back towards the park, staying on the same street, hoping that the street would turn shiny again. And that he’d see more funny people in funny hats, yellow cars, and most importantly, more Duanes.

He definitely regretted not chasing the last Duane he saw. He needed a good run.

“There’s one!” the beast says to himself as he sprints down a very narrow, dirty street. But once he gets there, he finds himself alone. He looks around for a minute throwing trash around. No Duane.

Back on the long street, the beast heads back to the park to tell Judy about his day when he notices that the shiny part of the street is up ahead. With the people and the cars.

He runs towards the pretty part of the street and out the left corner of his eye he sees a Duane. He turns to face Duane as Duane turns to face him. They both grin eagerly and begin to run at each other, bumping heads and both falling backwards.

Next thing Duane knows, a little girl is standing over him. She says, “Hey, mister. Are you okay? Why did you run into that window?”

Duane shakes his head for a minute and then starts to stand up. “What the hell am I doing out here?”

The last thing Duane remembers is being in his apartment wondering how he was going to clean it up and avoid the potential life prison sentence. Now he is lying in the street with a massive headache and no idea where he is.

Shiny streets? Why the hell is he thinking about shiny streets? Suddenly, Duane hears an all too familiar voice coming from a block or so back.

“Duane! Me coming!”

Duane gets up and runs back towards his apartment building, but stops in his tracks when he notices the police cars and yellow tape blocking the entrance. He is in full view of the crowd that has gathered, so he is not surprised when he hears a voice yell “There he is!”.

Duane turns to run away from what is sure to be an angry mob, but he only gets two steps into the intersection when a delivery truck is unable to avoid him. The collision kills Duane instantly. The police call this one, “case closed.”

The beast watches from a distance and shouts Duane’s voice when he sees the collision. Suddenly, the beast hears a familiar voice from the other side of the road. It is Judy.

“Joseph! Get over here! Right now!”

“Mama, what happened to Duane?”

“He’s gone, honey. He’s gone.”

The beast began to cry as he followed Judy back to the park.

It was two weeks before Jerry and the other tenants could get back into their apartments. Jerry stayed in a hotel, but was happy to be back home, finally. He walks in the door at 10:05 am, as he does every weekday, to unwind from his shift.

Jerry walks slowly across his hallway that connects his front door to his living room and looks at his apartment as though he has never seen it before. Suddenly, Jerry hears a scratching at his door. It starts off faint, but becomes louder and louder.

“Duane? Chase?”