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Chapter 2

I got some clothes at a nearby homeless shelter. I had to pretend to be homeless, which wasn’t difficult seeing as I had no home to go to. Even the lease on my Kansas City apartment had expired the day I left for Europe. The homeless shelter even gave me a half-decent meal before I took off for the US embassy, hoping to get a new passport so I could get home and regroup.

“It’s going to take at least three weeks to issue a new passport,” they told me, and they didn’t seem to care when I told them that I had no money, no identification, no anything. How was I supposed to survive for the next three weeks? How was I supposed to buy food and where was I supposed to live? The man at the embassy, with an uncaring dry look on his face, told me to try the homeless shelter. So that’s where I ended up again, sitting among all the heavily bearded homeless in a large room that held the a sharp smell of body odour. I spent my first night there and then I couldn’t take any more. I knew I would quickly lose my mind in those shared rooms. During my one night there, a few rooms down from me, one homeless man stabbed another over a five dollar bill. We were woken up at 3:00 AM by police asking if we’d witnessed the crime, or if we could identify the culprit.

So the next day, I decided to hike back towards Edinburgh, where I’d started my journey with Tony. I figured my bag and all of my things may still by laying around, just off that path where we’d been attacked, and maybe someone could provide some clue as to what the hell had happened that night, whether we really were attacked by some crazy transforming wild woman, and if Tony really had been killed by a violent mob.

Before leaving the homeless shelter, I grabbed a whole loaf of bread. They said to take as much as I wanted, and I knew I was in for a few days of hiking. I figured a loaf would suffice.

My first night out, I slept under the stars in an open field, on the cold, hard ground. It was terribly uncomfortable, but it beat the hell out of sleeping in that noisy, smelly homeless shelter.

It rained through my second night. I found a tree that stopped some of the water from drenching me while I tried to sleep, but I still ended up soaked from head to toe. The next day was muggy and my clothes refused to dry. There’s nothing worse than hiking with wet socks. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I stopped to ring them out, they seemed to be endlessly full of water.

My third night wasn’t so bad. I took all of my clothes off and hung them on a tree, and I slept naked. There’s something strangely freeing about sleeping in the nude, in the wide open—the same way our early ancestors probably slept.

On my fourth night, I arrived at the spot where we’d been attacked. At least I was fairly certain it was the spot—it was hard to tell in those Scottish Lowlands, all of the grassy rolling hills looked the same. I looked around for my bag but found nothing. I did find a large scorched circle of grass, but whatever had been scorched was gone. Maybe I hadn’t been hallucinating. Maybe that angry mob really had burned my friend and that crazed lunatic.

A strange wave of fear washed over me. The night was silent, but the memory of that night seemed to come flooding back to me. I found myself looking over my shoulder constantly, worried some crazy woman would come flying out of nowhere, worried that mob would show up with their rifles and blast me to death. I found myself back at the road and I continued towards Edinburgh.

Not too far from the spot where we’d been attacked was an intersection and a sign that read, ‘Tolly 2KM’ with an arrow that pointed west. I decided to go towards the town of Tolly, hoping they might have the answer to my little mystery. As I came over the hill, the dim light of the town became visible. The town was old, appearing almost Medieval. There were no streetlights. The dim orange glow was from sconces on walls, flickering lanterns shining warm light down on claustrophobic doorways. There were no people on the desolate streets and none of the houses had windows.

It reminded me of a town in Kansas that was built for a film shoot and left there as a tourist attraction. All of the houses in the false town were empty, save for a few that were used in the film: a saloon, the sheriff’s office, and the protagonist’s house.

But Tolly was no false film town; it was the real deal. I could sense that there were people in the quiet houses. The detail-work around all the structures was too great. The Kansas film town looked good from the main drag, but when you looked down laneways, most of the town was unpainted, filled with exposed bracings, with cheap plastic decorations on buildings that weren’t meant to be seen up close.

I came upon a structure that was glowing just a bit brighter than the others. There was a sign above the door that read, ‘The Fat Cunt’. The establishment’s name sent a shiver down my spine. It was a pub with a big heavy door. I went inside.

The small, dimly lit pub was full of people, laughing, drinking, chatting. There was no music playing, but the place was still loud and vibrant, voices reverberating off of the old, wooden plank walls. It wasn’t until I closed the door behind me that everyone noticed me and became completely silent. I got the immediate impression that I wasn’t welcome.

I stepped up to the bar and asked for a water. “Water’s a dollar,” the bartender said, but I don’t think it was true—at least not to anyone else. Everyone watched me as I stood there silently, feeling suddenly foolish but having no idea why I felt so foolish.

“A dollar?” I said. “I don’t actually have a dollar. I lost my wallet.”

“Then no water,” the bartender said.

I looked around. People stared into my eyes. I looked back at the bartender, who was looking at me, waiting for me to leave. “Is that all?” he asked.

“A few days ago, I was passing through this area with a friend. He was shot. Did you hear about that by any chance?” I asked.

He stared at me in silence for a moment and then shrugged. “Nope.”

“Are you sure? There was a woman that attacked us—she was shot too. At least I think she was a woman. I’m not really sure. You see, I’m trying to find—”

“—I think it’s best if you leave, sir,” the bartender said, cutting me off.

I looked around again. The faces of the patrons seemed to agree with their bartender, so I turned around and I left. It was obvious I wasn’t getting any answers from any of them. But they knew—it couldn’t have been more obvious. They knew exactly what had happened to Tony and me. And whatever had happened, they were terrified of it.