Jack Coleman 2 VIDEO

The Key

The key in my hand weighs more than it should. The cold metal digs into my palm as I climb the basement stairs. The door opens into a different alley. Chicago's lights flicker above, reflecting in the puddles splashing the asphalt.

I press one hand against the wall and breathe deeply. The air smells like gasoline and wet trash. I don't know what time it is. I don't know what day it is. I only know I have a key in my hand and a name carved into my arm.

Emma.

I walk toward the main street. My steps are unsteady, as if I have to relearn how to walk. People pass by me without looking. A man with a black umbrella brushes against my shoulder and keeps walking. A woman talks on the phone while walking, laughing at something I can't hear.

None of them know I just discovered I'm a killer.

None of them know I have a wife I don't remember.

I reach the avenue and raise my hand. A taxi stops beside me. I get into the back seat, and the driver looks at me through the rearview mirror.

"Where to?"

"Bus station," I say.

The taxi starts. The city parades behind the fogged glass. Brick buildings. Neon signs. People walking quickly with their heads down beneath the rain.

I try to remember something, anything, about this city. But everything feels strange. Like I'm watching a movie about someone else's life.

The driver turns on the radio. A voice talks about the weather. About traffic. About a body found in a dumpster this morning.

I squeeze the key in my pocket.

"Hey, buddy?" the driver says. "You feel okay? You look pale."

"I'm fine," I reply.

But it's not true.

The taxi stops in front of the bus station. I pay with bills I find in my inner pocket. Money I don't remember putting there. I get out of the car and cross through the glass doors.

The station smells like cheap coffee and sweat. People sitting on plastic benches, watching screens advertising destinations I don't know. I find the lockers at the end of the hall. I walk among them counting the numbers until I reach 1408.

The lock opens with a dry click.

Inside is a black backpack. I take it out and open it on my knees, sitting on the floor where nobody can see me well. A passport with my photo but another name: Daniel Hayes. A stack of bills, all hundred-dollar ones. A short black gun, cold. A folded piece of paper.

I open the paper.

There's a handwritten address: *47th Street, Apartment 3B. Ask for the mailman.*

Nothing else.

I put everything back in the backpack and stand up. I need a map. I need a phone. I need to know where I'm standing before I move forward.

I approach a vending machine that has a city map taped to its side. I trace the streets with my finger until I find 47th. It's on the other side of Chicago, in a neighborhood near the lake.

A group of young people passes laughing beside me. One of them trips and bumps into me.

"Sorry, boss," he says without looking at me.

I keep walking toward the station's back exit. I prefer moving through side streets, far from cameras, far from the police eyes.

But as soon as I cross the door, I see a black car parked on the other side of the street. The windows are so tinted I can't see who's inside.

The engine starts when it sees me come out.

I walk quickly to the left, slipping into a narrow street between two buildings. The black car moves slowly, keeping pace with me from a distance.

I quicken my pace until reaching a corner and turn right without looking back. I hear the engine approaching.

I start running.

My legs respond better now, as if the body remembers what the mind forgot. I jump over a puddle filled with water and keep straight.

The black car accelerates behind me, skidding around the corner to follow.

I turn left again and see an alley with a semi-open gate at the end. I throw myself toward it, forcing my body through the gap barely wide enough to pass, scraping my arms against the rusty metal on the other side of the narrow passage.

I emerge onto another street and cross running between cars, ignoring the honking that lingers behind me in the humid night.

I climb onto the opposite sidewalk and enter a building with doors wide open, without asking if I can enter or not — I just need to disappear for a moment, a breath to think about what to do next in the shadows of the empty entryway while I catch my breath, supporting my sweaty hands against my trembling knees after the long stretch of aimless flight between streets flooded under Chicago's constant rain, dimly lit by streetlamps reflected in dark puddles in the middle of the nocturnal silence barely broken by some distant engine or hurried footsteps on wet pavement.

The muffled and insistent echo drums in my ears.

Footsteps. Firm weight. Paced rhythm. Methodical. Advancing slowly on concrete.

Someone's entering.

Someone's following me.

I breathe deep, straighten my shoulders, squeeze the backpack, search for the back exit, interior courtyard, stairs, elevator shaft — anywhere but staying still, waiting to be caught again.

Now I know I can run.

Now I need to learn if I also know how to fight.