I woke up at 6am, had breakfast, watched the news, and checked my e-mail. By 715 I decided I needed an extra hour of sleep, so I e-mailed the office explaining I was going to sleep off a headache and that I would be in by about 930. I set the alarm for 815 and the second I hit the pillow I zoned back out.
What happens next all happened in my head while I was asleep.
It was about 930 in the morning. I was chasing after my brother in some public place in down/mid-town Omaha, either the zoo or the airport or something. He was driving some souped up golf cart (like the ones they use to haul injured athletes off a football field), and I was getting pissed because I was late for work. To make things worse, I had brought my old work cellphone (which was no longer in service) so I had no way of calling in to the office to let everyone know where I was. Finally I realized we were chasing through the same set of kiosks over and over in circles, and I turned around and went the opposite direction. Sure enough, we found each other face-to-face, and my brother decided enough was enough. We loaded up and headed towards my parents’ house in Papillion.
Along the way back, we were stopped on Highway 370 about halfway between Bellevue and Papillion. Two people stepped out of the car behind us, and we got out of our golf cart to see what was wrong. They looked to be in their 20s, both either hispanic or asian (I couldn’t tell), both around 5′9″ and 160-170lbs. They were wearing some uniform I didn’t recognize; I got the impression they were military personnel based out of Offutt back in Bellevue.
“You guys were going way too fast,” one of the guys says. My brother and I just kind of looked at each other and went WTF, we were in a golf cart, how were we going too fast?
So we’re working through the situation with these two guys, and one of them looks at me and says, “we’re probably going to take you in for being a drug addict anyway. You have long hair and you’re dressed in black.”
Well, the long hair part is true, but I was dressed in traditional slack gear – a black t-shirt, olive-colored shorts, and sandals. I’m not exactly Johnny Cash here. I explained this to the guy, but that didn’t seem to make any difference; he was convinced he was going to get something on me and was taking me in whether I liked it or not.
Meanwhile my brother’s getting into some kind of altercation with the other guy, and things turn violent. I didn’t catch what it was about, but now they’re struggling over a gun. Somehow my brother gets ahold of it and shoots the guy. By the time he turns around toward me the guy I was arguing with already has his gun out and shoots my brother. I wrestled the gun away from him and either shot him or clubbed him to death with the gun; I forget which, but either way I’m the only person left standing with three dead bodies around me.
I checked both of the guys for cellphones and found one on each. I opened one of them up and dialed 911, but I didn’t get an emergency operator on the other end. It was somebody requesting a status update on something. I didn’t know what was going on there, so I hung up and started looking for my brother’s phone. I dialed 911 on that instead and got something a little more familiar-sounding, so I explained where I was and what had happened. The operator advised me to stay put until help arrived, but for some reason I was concerned those two guys had friends who would be looking for them shortly. I told the operator I’d be heading west on 370 and hung up. I grabbed all three cellphones and just took off running.
A few minutes later I had made my way into one of the new commercial developments along 370, and stopped at a convenience store to catch my breath. Next thing I know, a fire engine pulls in to the lot and somebody yells at me to get in. I hop in and somebody explains they got the 911 call and saw me go to the convenience store while they were tracking me down. We go back to this place to chill until the police can catch up to us; it’s either a house or an office, I couldn’t tell. I just remember pacing in this open room keying through saved text messages on the phones I picked up off of those guys, trying to figure out anything I could about them.
Somebody was complaining in the background, “he’s going to lead them right to us.” I disregarded it.
One text message stuck out on the phone I was looking at: the name on it was familiar, and it was talking about some drop he had just gotten in WOW. A good friend of mine had sent that text, but I couldn’t decide if that had anything to do with anything or if it was just an odd coincidence.
Knock, knock, knock.
I stayed out of sight from the entrance while somebody else answered the door. After a few seconds, they called my name and I went up front to see who was there.
It was three more guys wearing the same uniform as the two from before.
I shot back awake and looked at the clock: 807.