Chapter 7

For two weeks, Manning did not have one encounter with Cody. He began to relax as the time passed without any sign of Cody’s threat being real. One night, while he was at home, trying to unwind from a hard day at work, he received a message on his pager. Apparently, one of his patients had just torn her stitches and was in dire need of attention. Manning could not understand why the other surgeons on shift could not handle the situation. He quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a dark-blue collared shirt and called Hudson.

“Jack, could you do me a big favour and drive me over to the hospital?” Manning asked. “My patient wants my services.”

“Sure thing,” Jack answered. “I’ll be at your place in five.”

Fifteen minutes later, as Hudson pulled up into one of he hospital’s driveways, Manning thanked him and told him he could go back home.

“How will you be getting back?” Hudson asked.

“I’ll walk,” Manning replied. “At least I won’t be in any hurry going back, and a walk will do me good. Thanks Jack, I appreciate this.”

“Anytime,” Hudson said. “If you need anything just give me a call.”

“Will do,” Manning said and shut the car door. He strode into the hospital and made his way to Mrs. Johnson’s ward. Outside the ward, a nurse was waiting for him.

“Gale, why couldn’t you have gotten another doctor to stitch her back up?” Dr. Manning asked.

“I’m sorry, doctor, but she insisted she only wanted you,” Gale answered. “She wouldn’t let anyone else touch her.” Then Gale winked and smiled. “She likes you, Dr. Manning.”

Dr. Manning chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous, Gale, there’s nothing about me to like.”

“I could argue with that,” a second nurse who was walking by spoke up. “Half of the hospital staff have something to say about your good looks and charm. Apparently you’ve just taken over the doctor-of-the-year throne that Dr. Hudson sat upon before your arrival.”

Dr. Manning could not believe he was listening to this. “The hospital staff created a doctor-of-the-year throne?”

“It’s just a playful status we made up,” the second nurse shrugged. “It stimulates gossip and lightens workload.”

Dr. Manning’s disbelieving face must have seemed very comical to the nurses, because they burst out in shy giggles as they stared at him. Actually feeling a little honoured, he entered the ward and attended to Mrs. Johnson. She was delighted to see him and though she apologised profusely for making him rush over, he could sense she was pleased with his presence. Once he was done stitching her up, he told her to stay put to avoid another problem.

“Won’t you tuck me in before you go, Dr. Manning?” she asked sweetly.

Manning looked at her. “You’re married, Mrs. Johnson.”

“Oh, it’s just tucking me into bed,” she said. “And my husband will never know, I won’t tell him.”

She reached out and grabbed his hand. Her sudden touch sent an uncomfortable tingle up Dr. Manning’s arm and he pulled away.

“Did I mention you look real hot in jeans?” Mrs. Johnson said.

“Have a good-night, Mrs. Johnson,” Dr. Manning said and quickly left the room. He must have been flushing, at least slightly, because when he met Gale outside again, she flashed him a very mysteriously cheeky smile.

Dr. Manning removed his lab coat and wasted no time in escaping the suddenly tense atmosphere of the hospital. With his hands tucked into his overcoat’s pockets to keep them warm, he began walking back to his apartment. He walked down three blocks before absent-mindedly turning into an alleyway, knowing it was a shortcut to his home but forgetting that alleyways normally kept danger within their walls.

Manning was halfway down the alley when he detected faint footsteps walking on the wet ground behind him, making soft splashing sounds as feet made contact with puddles. He turned around and saw another character walking quite a distance behind him. It was too dark for Manning to make out any features, so he turned back to the front and walked on. The mysterious man had stirred Manning’s thoughts and memories and he recalled how even the emptiest alleys had thugs lurking around in them.

Manning consoled himself by reminding himself that he had once been one of the toughest kids in one of the meanest neighbourhoods, thus he was bound to know how to defend himself. He recalled all the first fights he had been involved in before and mentally prepare himself for any attempted assault on him whatsoever.

“Hey, Manning!” Vincent Arroyo-Lopez called

Bobby, sitting at a booth in Café Garcia and tutoring two classmates on Chemistry, turned his head to the right and saw his old enemy standing a few metres away from him with a couple of his buddies.

“What kind of nerd have you turned into?” Vincent asked.

Bobby ignored his arch-enemy and continued his conversation on with his classmates.

“Manning, I asked you a question!” Vincent said, walking closer.

Bobby received worried looks from the two friends talking to him. “You know, Rob, maybe we could talk about this on the phone or something,” the girl said quietly.

“No, explaining it in person will make it much easier for you to understand,” Bobby declined.

An unused marijuana stick came flying through the air and landed on Bobby’s Chemistry text book.

“How about it, Manning? Let’s relive some old times,” Vincent urged.

Bobby picked up the cigarette and said, “We had no old times, Lopez.”

Vincent chuckled. “Sure we did, all those fights we had. Remember when we were eight? That bit of dough we were fighting over? You were such a runt, I beat the crap out of you.”

Bobby’s eyes narrowed as he recalled the day…


“Where’d you get that black eye, boy?” his father had asked.

“Vincent Lopez punched me,” little Bobby had answered.

“Oh he did, did he? What did the two of you fight over?”

“A ten-dollar bill.”

Right at that moment, the atmosphere had turned bitterly cold and little Bobby knew why.

“You fought over a ten-dollar bill and lost?” his father had growled, his tone suddenly full of rage. “That was good money, boy, why didn’t you fight harder?”

Little Bobby had no idea what to say, so he had kept silent, but that was his biggest mistake for the day. He had not even seen it coming and the next thing he knew, he was sitting naked on the chair while his father whipped him with a hard belt..


“Oh, here’s another good one,” Vincent continued. “We were eleven, and you lost pathetically to Pedro and me.” He laughed. “It was priceless the way you were unable to hit us even once and when your Papa heard about defeat, he stripped you and threw you out – remember that?”

Bobby remembered, and it burned him up to have to recall such bad memories. He wished Vincent would stop embarrassing him in front of his friends.

“Come on, Manning, we haven’t had a good brawl in years since you left the slums,” Vincent said. He slapped Bobby’s head to provoke him. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Bobby ignored his friends’ bothered looks and stood up. He walked out of the café with Lopez and his buddies tailing behind him. Once outside, he turned to Lopez and said, “I don’t want anything to do with you, Vince, so just leave me alone from now on.”

“Have you forgotten who you are, Bobby?” Vince asked.

“I know who I am and it’s not who I was,” Bobby said. “So you can get lost and pick on Cody or something.”

Lopez’s eyebrows lifted. “Back then you refused to defend your brother. Now you’ve gone to the extent of daring us to beat him up? You have grown more cold-hearted.”

“Anything to get your dirty face out of my life,” Bobby spat and flicked the marijuana stick against Lopez’s chest.

Very spontaneously, Lopez grabbed Bobby and threw him to the ground. He sent his boot into Bobby’s face, making Bobby cringe in pain. With all three boys kicking him and stomping on him, Bobby was unable to fight back so he did his best to protect his face and stomach by curling into a fetal position. Fortunately for him, a police officer happened to be patrolling by, and he was rescued in no time.

Manning’s memories did not bring him much comfort since he had lost a good number of fights in his days. He cautiously looked behind him again and noticed the stranger had disappeared. All he could see hovering behind him now was mist. It was then when he noticed the temperature seemed to drop. Suddenly he heard a scuffle from the dark alley on his right. He turned in that direction but was a little too late to avoid or defend himself from the attack.

Manning felt a hard first ram into his face and he staggered back, his left eye hurting. A body tackled him over onto the damp floor. “You stupid son of a bitch!” Cody’s voice yelled.

At the sound of the familiar voice, Robert gathered some courage and strength and pushed Cody off. “You’re the second son of the same bitch, Cody,” he shot back.

Cody ran at Robert again as he stood up, but this time Robert evaded the swing and sent his own fist into Cody’s stomach, making Cody double over in pain. He pushed Cody against the wall and said, “Cody, stop it.”

But Cody did not stop. “I hate you,” he muttered and took a knife from his pocket.

Robert retaliated in alarm as Cody started swinging the blade viciously at him. Robert tried to find the right time to grab Cody’s wrist, but his timing was slightly off and the knife gashed the palm of his right hand. Robert stifled a cry and pulled away, blood oozing out of his nasty wound. Now he felt afraid. The fanatical glint in Cody’s glazed eyes made him look absolutely terrifying. Robert turned and tried to run, but Cody, with adrenaline pumping in his veins, tackled him a second time and turned him around so Robert lay on his back and faced him.

“You never do anything right, do you?” Cody asked.

“No… Cody, no!” Robert cried when Cody lifted his knife to slash at him. He lifted his arms to protect his face. The sharp knife penetrated his coat and windbreaker sleeves and made contact with his skin. Robert felt the kind of pain that he had not felt in a long time, a pain he had always despised, as the new, deep wounds began stinging.

What Cody did next was completely unanticipated – he raised the blade and vertically pierced Robert’s stomach. Robert felt the sudden pain and looked down at the knife, his voice getting caught in his throat. Cody pulled the blade out and mercilessly stabbed Robert a second time, next to the first wound. Robert felt the fear of death creep into his heart.

“Cody… stop it,” he begged.

“Why should I listen to you? You never listened to me!” Cody shouted and lifted the blade again.

Robert could see the insane pleasure in Cody’s eyes that made him look like the evilly possessed doll in Child’s Play as he stabbed Robert a few more times, not just in the stomach, but in the chest as well, dangerously close to Robert’s heart. Finally, thinking he had done enough, Cody picked up Robert’s mobile phone and auto-dialled the last number Robert had called. He lay the phone by his brother’s mouth and ran off into the darkness.

In his grogginess, Robert almost did not hear Jack Hudson pick up.

“Bobby?” the voice from the phone called. “Bobby, you there?”

Manning coughed up blood at trying to answer. The pain he felt intensified and he shut his eyes.

“Bobby, where are you?” Hudson asked.

Manning felt his body temperature decrease. He was losing a lot of blood and the near-freezing winter air did not make him feel any better. His nerves began to tremble uncontrollably from the chill. He forced himself to take his pager from his belt and trigger the alarm. Then, with all hope that someone would hear the beeping, he passed out.