They all had seen what had just happened. They and all the people around had.
A woman had just asked a seemingly harmless question... and then suddenly drawn a knife and stabbed the girl named Beth out of nowhere.
It was a cold blooded lethal assault.
A murder attempt.
Beth´s friend Kana and the two paramedics were now not longer sitting on the bench, but standing in a save distance to the attacker.
Just like her other friend Carry, who had taken a few steps backwards, to get further away from the woman who was still holding the knife in her hand.
Both of them were shocked by what just happened to their friend.
xxx
They were however not the only ones.
Peter and Sarah and a few other people were now standing at the other side to the probably likely insane woman. Together they were forming a small circle around her. A small circle of in equal parts shocked and afraid people.
And a number of other people were standing in a a bit greater distance in a crowd behind them.
"Ruft die Polizei (Call the police)," Kana and Carry heard someone calling out in german.
But they didn´t pay much attention to all of that. For good reason.
Their eyes were still glued on the woman who had just stabbed their friend in front of them.
xxx
The two paramedics who had been taking care of Kana just a moment earlier were now urging to move to take a look at Beth. To see if they could maybe still do anything to help her.
But the attacker was still standing in their and everyone else´s way.
xxx
Peter for a short moment in his mind had to remind himself that this was not one of his visions.
That this was reality - deadly reality... in the here and now
And the probably insane woman was still just standing there and could attack someone else whenever she wanted.
She was looking around at the people standing surrounding her with a detached and empty look.
"Is that it? Was this enough?" she suddenly started obviously talking with herself.
xxx
For a few moments Peter considered throwing the suitcase he was carrying at the woman, hurting and possibly disabling her for a moment and in the best case even throwing the weapon out of her hand. And then tackling and overpowering her.
He was not the only one in the circle around her who had such ideas. A few other people were eyeing her as well for signs that she let her guard down.
In fact right next to him, Sarah had pretty much the same thought as Peter.
But then she simple turned around to them.
"You." She looked at Peter. "You are here, just like he said you would be."
"What are you talking about? Peter asked.
"Yes - who is this he?" Sarah said harshly.
"I-..." Something in the woman´s expression suddenly changed. "I said too much. I am sorry. I shouldn´t have done it..."
With that she suddenly moved her knife at her own throat... and started to cut.
Peter and Sarah saw the blade tearing into her skin and flesh and blood flowing out, much blood.
But before she could finish, one of the paramedics run at her from the other side and grabbed the arm holding the knife.
Peter reacted, moved forward and helped him getting the knife out of the woman´s hand. After a few moments however she collapsed and passed out anyway, obviously through the blood-loss.
At the same time the second paramedic had already run to Beth and was checking her vitals.
"Nein (No)," he said after a few moments.
He was shaking his head. She was dead.
He instantly begann resuscitation measures - carefully, since Beth had been stabbed in the chest area. But it didn´t show any sign of success.
At the same time his colleague was trying to stop the blood flow of the assassin´s would.
They both were kneeling in a large puddle of blood from both women, mixing with each other. It was a nightmarish scene.
xxx
It was only a few minutes later that they heard sirens in the distance.
Someone actually had called the police as it seemed.
Two police-cars and a second ambulance arrived a short time later.
But as it turned out it was far too later for either victim or attacker. All what was left to do for them was that they delivered the two bodies to the morgue in the hospital.
And then the police begann talking to the people who had watched the attack.
xxxxxxx
It was a couple hours later.
The police had already taken the personal data and contact information of everyone who had witnessed the murder back at the train station.
Afterwards most of the people had left and had returned home, with the information that they would get calls in the following days to make appointments for further more in-detail questionings.
The exception were Kana and Beth who were directly involved with the victim and had agreed to come with the police for their testimony of the events right away and Peter and Sarah, who had volunteered to do the same thing.
Peter had, a bit surprisingly, also offered to go with them to the police-station and give his own accord right now.
And so Sarah had decided to do the same thing.
It was obvious to Peter that at least the first part of his planned trip would fall flat anyway. And if he would be sitting at home for the next week, waiting for a call by the police involving his questioning in a murder-case, he could forget the rest of it as well.
So it would be better to get it behind him right now. Maybe if he went with them now instead, he could still make his trip a few days later with a few adjustments.
That was at least least what he told his sister and the policemen.
His true reason was that he wanted an opportunity to talk to the girl named Kana alone. The one who seemed to have the same ability like himself.
xxx
The central police-station responsible for the local district, consisted of two large square-formed five-storied buildings. Oldenburg was the largest and most important towns in the region and the buildings reflected this.
Peter and Sarah were sitting at the edge of a line of chairs in the corridor close to the entrance. Next to them were an elderly couple and a group of teenagers, who were there for completely different reasons.
Kana and Carry had already been brought to two different rooms and answering the questions of the policemen. Sarah and Peter would have their turn after them.
A couple minutes later Kana came out of one of the rooms at the end of the corridor, along with a female police-officer who walked closely behind her.
"Excuse me - Sarah and Peter Maynard?" the policewoman addressed them.
"Yes," Sarah responded.
"Would you please come with me."
"Ahm - I want some fresh air," Kana said. "It is okay if I wait outside?" she asked the officer.
"Of course," the woman answered. "Actually - since your questioning is already over and we have your contact data, you can leave whenever you want."
"No - I´ll be waiting for Carry," Kana said.
"Alright. Your friend should come out soon too," the policewoman explained.
Peter, just like the others who were still sitting in line to be questioned, had seen the short exchange. He had been waiting for a chance to talk to Kana alone the entire time.
"Can I go outside for a few minutes too?" he asked the same officer.
"Sure - your sister is listed before you anyway," she replied. "But please don´t go too far away. You should be called soon as well."
"Don´t worry, I will just go a few meters," Peter said as he stood up.
More was not needed anyway.
So he walked to the entrance, following Kana who just opened the front-door and stepped outside.
He went after her and they were both standing in a small distance to each other on the small trass in front of the police building.
Kana however was just starring silently into the empty air. The events of today had probably taken their toll on her. No surprise given the circumstances, he thought.
"Miss," he greeted her. "Your name is Kana, isn´t it? I am sorry for what has happened to your friend," he told her, speaking in flawless english.
"Yes. Thank you," she replied in a hollow tone.
"I am Peter Maynard," he introduced himself.
"Like the novel-author?" she asked.
"Actually, that is me," he said.
"Really? My friend Carry often reads your novels. Well - I did read a couple of them too. She kind of got me into it," Kana admitted. "I normally would say I am happy to meet you, but..." But one of her best friends had just been murdered.
She didn´t need to say it out loud.
"I understand," Peter told her.
xxxx
So this was it, he realized. How exactly did you ask someone you had just met today if they had bizarre visions their entire life? he thought to himself.
But he needed to do that. It might be his only chance to find someone else who was like him.
But why did ne needed to do that anyway? another part of him questioned. He had lived his life quite fine so far.
What if he was wrong? What if he misinterpreted what he had seen in the last vision? What if she thought he was crazy? Or what if she pretended not to know what he was talking about?
But... another part of him just needed to do it.
xxxx
"There is something I have to talk with you about," Peter said.
"And what?" Kana asked curiously.
"About the things you saw before you collapsed," he told her.
"I - I am not sure what you mean," she replied after a short moment of hesitation.
Something that Peter noticed as well. He was now more convinced that his suspicion was correct.
As for Kana - she was feeling pretty much the same way like Peter had a few seconds before.
Could this man somehow actually know about her visions?
No. Maybe he meant something else, maybe something he had seen inside the station building, she thought grasping at straws.
If she told him about the visions, she would probably end up making a complete fool of herself.
"Grey skin," Peter moved his face close to hers and said quietly to her, "hands with four overlong fingers, a mouth full of sharp teeth, black eyes."
"How?" Kana subconsciously took a step backwards as she heard this.
He saw her visibly freeze with the details he listed up about the appearance of the creature they both had seen. Something he should have impossibly have known, if it weren´t for the shared vision.
He now knew for sure that he had been right.
"I have seen it too," Peter stated.
"You - you are like me?" she realized. "I - ... As long as I remember I had this strange visions," she explained. "They show me... " she was not quite sure how to formulate it, "... sometimes completely bizarre places," she said, "... and sometimes normal scenes, but later they really happen..."
"The future, yes - sometimes I can see it. Sometimes," Peter stated. "And places that has to be from different worlds... or maybe realities."
"Yes," Kana said. "Beth! Why had I not seen what had happened to her?" it suddenly bursted out of her in her grief and anger. "We can foresee the goddamn future, but not in the moment when it matters."
"I... can we talk about this a bit more later?" she asked. "It is just all a bit much to take in right now. Especially after all what happened today."
"Of course," Peter said. "I am the next who will be called for questioning anyway," he stated. "It is probably any minute now."
It was in fact just a short moment later that an officer came out and called for him.
Peter walked back inside, following the policeman.
He was being led through the corridor of the building, inside a mostly empty room with only one shelf standing at the backwall and filled with various folders and with a small table in the center. Where one other officer was already waiting for them and said to Peter to sat down on one of the other chairs.
The first officer, the one who had brought Peter here, sat down next to him.
It was a scene like it could have been out of some of the crime-series on TV or ironically, one of Peter´s own novels.
He had already done some investgative work about how policework actually was in real life.
This was of course still his first time experiencing it in regard of a serious crime like this.
Peter continued to answer a few questions the two men asked him and gave them a small account of the incident how he remembered it.
"That is all I can remember," he said.
"Okay," one of the cops replied. "That would be all. Maybe we will contact you again later. But given that we have your entire testimony recorded and that the culprit is already dead, it is also good possible that this already was it for you."
"Good - I had been planning to go on a trip out of the country for the next three weeks," Peter stated.
"That should be no problem," the policeman replied. "In case that we have some more questions for you, we have your and your sister´s contact information after all."
By the way he said this, it was obvious that he didn´t expect there to be any more questions for him. Peter was just a random witness with no connection to either the culprit or the witness after all.
A few minutes later it was over and Peter walked the same way back and out of the building.
xxx
Outside he saw that not only Sarah, but also Kana along with her friend Carry was waiting for him.
"It seems you can meet fans in the strangest situations," Sarah commented about the two.
This was obviously the story that Kana had told her about why she and Carry were here.
"I really want to continue our conversation from earlier," Kana said to him.
"Well - can it be that you have found yourself someone here Peter?" Sarah commented.
"No - this..." Kana begann to say something.
Obviously she was just as surprised by what Sarah was clearly implying, like Peter was.
xxxx
It was not that for the start either of them had an issue with the fact that he was clearly around ten years older than her. Or that they were from different countries.
Neither of that would have held either of them back if they were truly interested in each other. But their meeting today had a completely different topic than a possible relationship or even sex.
Not to mention that it was under very bad circumstances. So Sarah really had a lack of tact here.
xxxx
"We will see about that," Peter stated. "We have just met after all. And besides, Kana here has just lost a close friend, so the circumstances are really bad. Would you leave this comments for now Sarah?" he told her with somewhat of a sharp edge.
"Yes exactly," Kana agreed.
"Sorry," she responded.
Neither of them really noticed the man who was approaching them. He was wearing a black overcoat and jeans.
Until he addressed them.
"(Entschuldigung (Excuse me) - Sarah, richtig? (Sarah, right?)" he said.
The man was speaking in german, but with a clear englisch accent.
They all turned around to the stranger.
"Yes?" Peter´s sister replied.
"It is me - Frank," the man told her.
"Frank," she said a bit surprised.
"Frank!" "Frank!" Peter and Kana both felt like they heard a faint echo of two women calling out his name in their minds.
They exchanged a short look and knew that the other had heard it as well.
Was there something strange about this man? they asked themselves.
"You know each other?" Peter asked Sarah.
"Yes - yes," she replied. "Frank is someone I met in the internet. As it turned out he is a great fan of your novels. I told him about your trip and we intended to meet at the train-station," Sarah admitted more than a bit unsettles.
"I hope you are not angry, but we wanted to keep it a surprise," she stated.
"Frank Cullen," he fully introduced himself and reached his hand out to Peter, who took it for a short handshake. And Peter could not help to feel like something was off.
"We feared you would not be in the mood to meet some fan just at the start of your journey," the man named Frank told him soberly. "But we missed each other anyway... for obvious reasons," he said, obviously reffering to the attack.
His face fell and he had a dark expression on his face as he said this.
"How did you know we were at the police-station right now Frank?" Sarah asked him.
"I didn´t," he answered, looking downwards, "I am here for personal reasons."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The woman who suddenly snapped and stabbed that girl and then herself," he said, "she was my girlfriend."
I have finally managed to finish the fourth chapter. For the last couple months I had been quite occupied with other issues. So it had taken me some time.
Side Note: The name "Frank Cullen" is inspired by two characters from famous horror stories (Frank Cotten - Hellraiser + Joseph Curwen - The Case of Charless Dexter Ward.)