6
Turning quickly, I ran to the open window to observe the scene below. There were panicked crowds of people, police vehicles storming in and officers scrambling on foot in all directions.
What just happened? A gunshot? Was someone shot? Where was I? What was I doing here?
I turned back to face the room, which was now just an empty unlit hotel suite. Wasn't I just at the hotel restaurant, being proposed to by Sammy, with a gathering of our closest friends?
My mind began to race and spin at the confusion of what was going on! Was I not just bound for home on the commuter train a few hours ago?
The details seemed so blurry and distant now, as if the previous few hours were nothing more than a dream!
I was drawn to meet a woman, in Charleston! Yes that's right! Before meeting with her, that gentlemen demanded with the end of his knife pressed against my chest, that I'd agree to whatever she wanted!
Which of course, turned out she wanted me to have someone killed! I refused, and I returned to the train again. I remember opening another letter, which led me to this Dallas, Texas hotel! That's right! My (fiance?) Sammy, she was here just now, waiting to spring this proposal on me! She wanted me to marry her, I said YES, of course!
But just as I had agreed to marry Sammy, then there was the gunshot! My mind began to settle and focus on my surroundings again!
I began to hear shouting coming from below in the building, sounds of jackboots running up stairs, and kicking open doors. An instinctual feeling to leave came over me. Before doing so, I quickly examined the room.
The bed! It had an open gun-case laying on it! Next to it was the local newspaper! The date read "November 22, 1963". The reference in time gave my head a shock! I felt a headache coming on, as I could not piece together what I was doing here after all, even who I was?
I heard new arrivals on the floor and I knew I was in jeopardy! My childhood reading detective comics, as well as my time as an aspiring Private Detective, all experiences which now informed me I was caught in the the middle of a nasty and twisted plot!
I grabbed the rifle from its case on the bed, and slung it over shoulder, before returning to the window and climbing onto the fire-escape to make my way to the street below....