The Watcher
^{A Story}
Chapter 4 - Distractions
by Saless
 

Marvin went over and over the recording that Saturday night, but there was no doubt about it. Somehow Tiffany had entered Michael and Jill's apartment and then somehow ended up in Sarah's apartment! She'd then gone to Michael and Jill's apartment alone. She wasn't there for very long, and then she left, got in her car, and drove away.

He was going over the tape one last time when he caught himself nodding off in the middle. It's been a long day, I'll take another look in the morning, maybe I missed something. he thought before going to bed.

However, in the morning he saw the same thing. Tiffany's beginning to look like an even more interesting subject than Sarah! And what was she doing in Michael and Jill's apartment alone? She's always focused her attention on Sarah before, and that's what I asked her to do, too. Could she have revealed herself to them to ask for their help? But then surely they'd tell Sarah about her, and she clearly didn't want that! Marvin thought.

After making a few calls he settled down to wait for Tiffany to appear again. He wanted to question her about the previous night's activities. He was still debating with himself about asking her how she got to Sarah's apartment without leaving Michael and Jill's when he got a phone call.

“Agent Garner?” his supervisor said. “Something happened not far from you last night. I want you to check it out.”

“Yes sir, as soon as I've talked to my contact here...” Marvin replied, but his supervisor cut him off.

“Not later, now! The media haven't gotten wind of this one yet, and I want to keep it that way. It's just three blocks east of where you are.” He snapped.

“Yes sir! What happened?” Marvin asked.

“Just talk to...Officer Alwin, he's at the scene. He'll have all the details for you.” he said, and hung up.

Great, now what?! Marvin thought irritably. He threw his coat on and hurried down to his car. It was a short drive, but he had a hard time finding parking, because of all the debris on the street. A large SUV was lying on its side inside the lobby of a bank. Glass, masonry, and other debris were scattered on the sidewalk and out into the street. There were also two streetlights down, one on either side of the bank. Finding Officer Alwin was easy enough, as he was putting caution tape up around the area.

“Officer Alwin?” Marvin asked as he approached. He noticed in passing that there were no skid marks on the road and the heaviest damage to the bank was actually a few feet up, making it look like the car had been airborne when it hit the bank.

“Who are you?” Officer Alwin asked absently as he strung the tape up. He seemed annoyed, and Marvin guessed that he'd already had to deal with plenty of curious people wanting to know what had happened, or just get a good look at the damage.

“I'm Special Agent Marvin Garner, I believe you're expecting me?” he said, flashing his ID when Officer Alwin looked up in surprise.

“Oh, Agent Garner, yeah, I was told you were coming. You're not going to believe the stories I'm hearing about what happened here. Can you believe that I've got three witnesses, none of them connected to the other, who all claim that some big bald guy picked up that SUV and threw it through the wall?! None of them look high, but they've got to be, right? I mean, nobody could throw any car, let alone a big SUV like that!” Officer Alwin said as he got back to roping off the area.

Marvin noticed there were three people, an older man, a young woman, and a teenage boy who were all waiting by a police cruiser. “Are those your witnesses?” he asked, pointing at them.

Officer Alwin glanced up to see where he was pointing and nodded, “Yeah, that's them. You want to talk to them, be my guest, but they've stuck to their stories like glue!”

“Okay, I think I will. Anybody asks, this was a simple car accident, okay?” Marvin said. Officer Alwin nodded. If this is for real then it has to be connected! It's too far to stretch coincidence. he thought as he approached the witnesses. He took them aside one by one, but they all said essentially the same thing Officer Alwin had. He took down their names, and instructed them not to talk to the press. They'd all agreed there was no one in the car, so Marvin took a look at it. There were no keys in the ignition, and all the doors were locked. He wrote down the license plate number and left.

He spent the rest of the day investigating the three witnesses and tracking down the owner of the SUV. He still had both sets of keys and had been on the other side of town when it happened and was very upset to learn that someone had taken his car for a 'joy ride' and flipped it into a bank, as Marvin told him. There had been no sign that the car had been hot wired, so it was looking more and more like the witnesses might have been telling the truth. As crazy as that sounded.

The older man was a retired Army Lieutenant with no criminal record. The teenager had been arrested once for shoplifting, but was otherwise clean. The woman was also clean. None of them showed any signs of using drugs. They were completely unconnected to each other, and had no reason to lie that he could find. What is going on in this town?! None of the people I'm watching now could have done this!

Marvin was sure all of these impossible events had to be connected, but he wasn't having any luck figuring out how. He'd gotten a sketch artist together with the witnesses, so now he had a face for this mysterious super strong man, but so far he'd had no luck finding out anything about him. He went to sleep that night frustrated with his lack of progress. And even more frustrating, he hadn't had a chance to question Tiffany!

Monday was an even more frustrating mess, as he was called away for another strange event just as he was finishing up his reports on the prior day's activities. This time it was reports of an angel flying down Main Street and healing a crippled woman! He thought it a joke at first, but there were plenty of medical records to prove that she was bound to a wheel chair and had no hope of recovering. And yet here she was, singing the praises of the angel who cured her!

He still would have ignored it, except that this 'angel' had been caught on camera! She turned out to be a fairly tall woman with very large white wings. The recordings, taken from three separate security cameras, clearly showed her landing, laying glowing hands on the crippled woman, and then flying off again. They also showed the woman slowly getting to her feet, though she fell back down shortly thereafter. She'd need physical therapy to learn to walk again, but there was nothing physically wrong with her.

This time he had an actual photograph to work with, but he found no solid leads on who she was. The press had naturally assumed it to be a hoax, so he was being careful to keep the fact there was video coverage a secret. The healed woman was making enough of a fuss without the press getting wind of that!

That evening Marvin was called in for a meeting with his supervisor, and the agent in charge of the field office that covered this area. At the meeting he learned that there was a rise, worldwide, in reports of paranormal phenomena. However, this town had the most significant occurrences so far reported, some of which had physical evidence to prove they weren't a hoax, where many others didn't. The agency was keeping track of all of these reports, but because of the number and significance of the events here, they decided to set up a headquarters for this effort right there, and put Marvin in charge of it!