The town of El Bueno

Chapter 6

I was awoken by a loud rapping on the door. At the first I didn't bother getting up and I merely grumbled and rolled over on my bed in response. My mind didn't immediately register the fact that someone was knocking to come in.

Much to my discontent, the rapping on the door did not cease. Left with no choice, I forced myself up and out of the bed and stumbled toward the door. I unlocked it and opened it to find myself face to face in front of Max.

"Morning" she said brightly "I'm sorry for intruding but I believe you have a job now and that means no more sleeping late into the morning"

"Oh yeah I remember" I murmured grumpily, rubbing my groggy eyes.

"You better shower and get down quick, or should I kill you first?"

"I mean you don't have to be that harsh, it's my first day" I said smiling slightly.

"Oh, but I can" Max said swiftly pulling out a silver knife from her pocket.

"What the-"

My eyes went wide and I took two steps backward. Max's eyes had gone wide too but there was a rather satanic look about them. Her hair was torn in places and there were scar marks all over her face I hadn't noticed before. She stepped forward slowly, not taking her eye off me.

"That was not a wise thing you did yesterday Daniels, accusing Terry of treachery" she said pointing the knife directly at my face.

"What, what does that even have to do with this?"

"Why would you do such a thing?"

"It was-look just put the knife down and we can talk this out."

But I might as well have said it to a wall, she seemed to pay no heed to my words. I had now gone behind so much that I had almost collided painfully into the wardrobe. I looked around the room, the situation was hopeless. I was cornered and had nowhere to go.

"I think it's time to have some of your tasty meat" Max said raising the knife to strike.

"Max, NO-"

The next thing I knew was that I was lying on my bed with an unusually rapid heart rate. I was sweating from head to foot again. It took me a good one minute to realize that I had been dreaming. The mental image of Max raising her knife to attack me was still stuck in my head.

I then realized that there was a loud rapping on the door. My heart skipped not one, but ten beats. I frantically looked around the room, searching for something to defend myself. I knew I was going crazy, taking a dream so seriously, but the timing seemed too coincidental to be innocent. I rushed over to the cupboard and pulled it open. A small crowbar lay inside. I picked it up and quickly went over the door. Crowbar in my right hand, I unlocked the door with my left and let it swing open.

It was Max.

"Good morn-" she said stopping mid-way, the smile wiped off her face at the sight of the crowbar in my hand. "Erm, bad time?"

I stared at her. This was too good to be a mere coincidence or was I going crazy?

"Jason?"
"Oh, no. Nothing" I said relaxing my grip on the crowbar. "I was in some deep sleep and well..."

"I understand" she said smiling "But you've got work to do, you better shower quick"

"Yeah fine"

Max smiled and then moved her hand to her jean pocket, from inside she extracted something, a silver-

"NO" I yelled and in one swift motion I swung the crowbar at her wrist, she let out a yelp of pain and fell backward onto the floor clutching her wrist.

"Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?" she asked crying.

I was breathing hard, I frantically looked around to see what she had been pulling out from her pocket.

It was a purse. A silver purse.

I then began to realize the gravity of the situation. There was no knife, there was nothing to be worried about. Max was just Max and I had just hit her on the wrist for no reason. Tears were flowing down her face and she kept clutching her wrist which was bleeding badly.

"Max, I'm sorry" I said falling down to my knees beside her.

"Are you a psychopath?" she yelled out, the initial shock in her face was now slowly turning into rage. The tears where beginning to dry up now.

I had no idea what to say or how to offer an explanation for my freak attack, so I did the only thing that made sense. I ran back down the flight of stairs and scouted the shop for a first aid kit, I found one at the very last row, picked it up and hurried back.

Max was already on her feet and she had managed to pull herself close to the stairs.

"Here show me your wrist" I said holding out the first aid kit.

I heard a scoff. "Oh wow, you went from full blown to psychopath to self proclaimed medical practitioner in less than a minute?"

"Max, please just hold out your wrist" I repeated, the first aid kit in my hand was shaking but my voice remained calm.

She was still seething with rage and her face was a very delicate shade of red. Nevertheless, she obliged and held out her wrist. Maybe she was smart enough to realize that her bleeding wrist was a more pressing problem or perhaps she had notice the hint of plea in my voice?

I wasn't, by any means, a "self proclaimed medical practitioner", but I did my best to treat the wound that I had inflicted upon her. Thankfully the bleeding began to cease, and eventually stopped, atleast for now.

"You better get this looked at by a proper doctor, I'm not a professional" I said when I had finished. Her wrist was now wrapped in a white bandage, which bore a rather blood stained look.

"And I'll cover for today. Get some rest"

She did not reply, she merely turned around and went back to open the door to her room.

"Max?"

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob but did not look back.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to hurt you. I had a nightmare and well.... I wasn't myself"

She said nothing, she did not look back at me either, she merely gave a curt nod and entered her room.

I let out a little sigh of relief knowing that her nod was an acknowledgement of my apology.