It seemed like it was a kid’s voice, the timbre between male and female, almost neutral. Simon couldn’t tell who it was, and there had been nothing else to help with that. As he viewed the bridge ahead of him, he knew exactly where the kid was. He was on the Lions Gate Bridge. Simon bolted to his feet, even as the person in the vision started to walk away. And, with that, the vision left him.
Exhausted, sweat running down his face and his heart slamming against his ribs in his chest, he tried hard to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with this. So what? Somebody looked down at the water. Big deal. He heard that voice in the background.
Do it. Do it.
But was that even somebody else, or was that just the person on the bridge? Their own subconscious telling them,Hey, this is the time. This is what you need to do. This will make it all stop. Just make it all go away.Did that have any value, or was this just straight fiction?
Groaning and feeling like every step he took had cement weights attached to his feet, Simon walked to his couch and collapsed on top of it. His hands shook, his breath raspy, and his head still boomed. And all he could think about was the scene on Lions Gate Bridge and how he felt a terrible sense that he needed to be there, even while he wondered just what going there would do for anybody.
He didn’t want to do anything because that would mean, every time something like this happened, he would feel like he had to go to the scene of the crime. Indeed, he felt an urgent sense ofgo, go, go. Hating what it was trying to say, he managed to stand and to walk to the door, even as he fought the impulse.No,came this… his inner sense of knowing.You have to go. Shaking his head, he said out loud, “It won’t do any good. By the time I get there, it will already be over, or the person will be gone.”
Go, go, go.
Groaning, and yet past the point of ignoring it, he took the elevator downstairs, grabbed his vehicle, hopped in, and headed toward Lions Gate Bridge. He parked at a pullout on the shoulder, then got out, locked up the vehicle, and almost raced down to the bridge. As he got onto the pedestrian walkway, he headed in the direction where he thought the person had been standing. Then as he got here, Simon noted it wasn’t quite right. He walked over a bit farther and then back again, only to realize he needed to be on the opposite side of the bridge. The traffic was heavy, coming in all directions. Yet there were traffic cams. He pulled out his phone and contacted Kate.
When she answered, her voice was distracted. With his words coming fast and stumbling over each other, his tongue feeling thick, as if he were pushing back another vision, he said, “Can you access the cameras on the Lions Gate Bridge?”
“Simon? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to pull himself together. “Can you access the cameras on the Lions Gate Bridge?”
“Yes,” she said, “it might take a bit though.”
“I need to know if somebody was at the bridge railing about twenty minutes ago.” He heard her brain stumbling through the bits and pieces of information and trying to figure it out.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I think somebody was here, ready to jump,” he said quietly. “It came through my head, and this time I was caught in a vision. I saw the bridge. I saw his feet, as he or she looked out at the water,” he said. “There was this voice in the background, saying ‘just do it’ over and over. But, at the same time, there was almost a longing for the water down below.”
“Jesus,” she said, her voice hushed. “Can you identify who it was?”
“No,” he said, “I only saw the sneakers.”
“Girl sneakers, guy sneakers?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped, his voice rising. “I’m on the bridge now.”
“Seriously?”
He heard a chair being pushed back, as she got up. He could almost imagine her walking over to her window, as if staring out in that direction would show him at the bridge. “Yes,” he said, “I’m here. I couldn’t stop the impulse to come down.”
“God,” she said. “What are you getting into? The last thing I want is you running around, heading to bridges, because people are committing suicide.”
“Do you think I want to be here?” he said in a hard voice; yet, in her background, he heard clicking keys.
“No,” she said, “I get it. You don’t want to be there, and something’s driving you to be there. I just don’t want you to become a victim too.”
At that, he stopped and frowned. “I don’t think that’ll happen.”
“But you don’t know that,” she snapped. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, and I don’t know why this is even happening. I know it’s not something you want to happen either, but it doesn’t seem to matter because it’s coming anyway.”
“Thanks,” he said almost bitterly, “like I need to hear that.”
“What you don’t need to hear,” she said, “is any more voices in your head.”
“Well, instead of telling me to not hear what I can’t control, why don’t you just find out if I’m right and if somebody was here.” And, with that, he hung up.
“God,” he said, as he stared out at the water, the wind picking up his short hair and spreading it flat against the side of his head. He gave his head a shake, trying to clear the cobwebs in the grip of a vision, still sitting in the periphery of his brain. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” he said, “but it can damn well stop.” And, of course, all he could think about was his grandmother’s words of warning.