Black Box: Book Three

45 ~ I was a part of Queen's Guard in England (Part Two)

I was hesitant to call the police after that crazy whatever-she-was left my apartment, but my girlfriend wouldn't have it. Police were at our place in about 20 minutes. Took our statements, woman's description, and told us to immediately call should anything else happen.

But my mind was set on something else. My commander. He told me not to talk to her. And I did. And now I'm waking up in bed with her, and how the fuck did she even get into my flat, shit man, too many thoughts.

The next day I went to my commander's office.

"Sir," I said very carefully – you need to understand that losing this job, no matter how shitty it was, definitely wasn't on my to-do list - "Sir, we need to talk."

He looked up at me from his desk and I swear to you, I swear he already knew. His face lost all the emotion. He didn't even ask what was happening. "Sit," he said as he leaned back in his chair.

"Sir, I..." I was having a hard time confessing to breaking the rules of the Guard.

"You spoke to her. You responded." He said as he leaned towards me. "Didn't you."

"Well, I just asked her to move, that's all."

"No, not the Queen's Guard command. Did you say anything else to her?" "I did." ** If you remember, besides me yelling "MAKE WAY FOR THE QUEEN'S GUARD", I did say "Ma'm, will you please..."**

"God damn it, son. God fucking damn it."

This was the first time I heard my commander curse.

"Sir, who is this woman?"

"I'm going to file for your immediate removal from the guard," he brushed me off as he opened his desk to look for something.

"Sir?" I asked, not believing I was about to lose my job.

"Don't worry, I'll find you something else to do. But your days in the Guard are over. Expect the transfer within a week."

"Sir, but I was just..." "That is all, son, you can leave now." He said, not even looking at me.

I was pissed. But then again, if I was going to keep the paycheck without having to stand in the street and deal with tourists/crazy fucking creatures, I was fine.

The new schedule came out and, what do you know, I was only scheduled to work one shift that week. That was really handy because I was supposed to babysit my 7 year old niece visiting from Birmingham, and I had already planned out the whole weekend with her.

Thursday came with no further incidents with the mouth-wide-open bitch. My girlfriend had finally calmed down. She left back to Amsterdam that morning and in a good mood. Life was getting back on track.

My shift that day was 6-10pm in front of St. James Palace. There are usually two of us working there, but for some reason, I was scheduled to work alone from 9-10. The little wooden post is where we'd stand in case of a storm. "Ok, buddy, hang in there, almost done," my fellow guard said at 9:02 pm, as he marched back inside.

"One more hour. One last hour of this damn job and I am free. God, it feels good..." I thought as I stood still in front of my post. Night was unusually quiet, but it was starting to rain, so I guess it was to be expected. 9:30pm. Still light rain, still boring as fuck. Almost there. 9:45pm. Rain was picking up, so I decided to spend my last few minutes in the post.

I turned around.

I shouldn't have.

There she was.

If I were a writer, I'd use all these descriptive tools to paint a picture of how horrifying that woman looked that night. Let me tell you, this was the single most terrifying thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a child getting killed by a land mine.