Chapter 6

Seth woke with an intense headache. He opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times to clear his blurry vision. He lay in the middle of the living room, his head pounding, bloody, and resting in a pool of his own dried blood and broken glass.

He carefully raised his head off the ground and sat up, leaning his back against the couch for support. He placed his hands on his head, feeling the half-inch laceration to his forehead and the golf ball sized bump, which had developed around it. The wound had stopped bleeding, but he'd probably need some stitches to close it.

Sunlight, shining through the oriel arranged windows, which opened over State Street, illuminated the room in bright light. He figured it must almost be noon. He'd been unconscious nearly twelve hours.

He slowly got up from the floor, reached for the telephone, and dialed 9-1-1. He explained to the emergency operator that his apartment had been broken into, he'd been attacked and knocked unconscious, and he needed an ambulance to transport him to the hospital.

After he finished explaining what had happened, the operator asked if the attacker was still in the apartment, a thought that slightly disquieted him. He hadn't considered that possibility. He looked for a nearby weapon, grabbing the three-hole paper punch sitting on his desk in the corner of the room, and carefully searched his home. It didn't take long, it wasn't spacious.

When he was finished, he relayed back to the operator that he was alone. In the meantime, she'd already dispatched an ambulance and squad car to his residence, informing him they'd be there shortly. Then, he hung up.

His apartment was completely ransacked, his belongs scattered everywhere. He inspected the mess, attempting to discern what, if anything, had been stolen. Immediately, he noticed his computer, disks, and files were missing. He couldn't believe it. He could understand someone taking the computer, but why his files? Luckily, he kept backups of his research stored on the university's computers.

Although his entire apartment had been thoroughly scoured by the thief, nothing else was missing. Whoever had done this was definitely looking for something, but he couldn't imagine what. After all, he was only a college student, not someone likely to have many valuables lying around.

Suddenly, he heard knocking and a deep, authoritative voice calling out, "Mr. Anderson, this is the police."

"Just a moment," he replied, opening the door to two uniformed officers.

"Mr. Anderson, I'm Officer Hodges and this is Officer Franklin. The ambulance is just arriving, and the EMTs should be up here in a moment. Are you alright?" the officer questioned.

"I think so, but I have a nasty cut. I think I need stitches," he answered, pointing at his forehead.

The officers entered the apartment, taking a brief walk-through to make sure no one else was present.

"It looks like they did a real good job of messing up your apartment. Do you know if anything was taken?" Franklin asked.

"It looks like they took my computer, files, and disks, but nothing else."

"Can you tell us what happened?" Hodges inquired.

He recounted how he arrived home around one in the morning, and how the intruder knocked him unconscious as he entered the room. He explained how he'd been hit before he was able to get a glimpse of his attacker, awaking only a few minutes ago and calling 9-1-1. All in all, he didn't know any more than the cops now did.

As he recalled the details of last night, he could hear the medics climbing the stairs. They entered his apartment, immediately attending to the wound on his head.

"Looks like he's going to need stitches," said one of them to the officers. "We'll need to take him to the hospital. Do you need him any longer?"

"No," Franklin stated to the medic. Then, turning to Seth, he said, "We'll write up the report and take it over to the hospital for you to sign. It looks like a simple case of burglary. Unfortunately, you happened to surprise the burglar in the act. I don't think your attacker was after you, so I'm sure he won't be back again."

"I wish I could be as confident as you, but it just seems odd to me that the burglar also took my personal papers. Those aren't worth anything. The computer is, but not the files," he replied.

"I agree that doesn't make sense, but thieves rarely make sense. Anyway, we'll look into it. We'll alert nearby pawnshops and computer resellers. Maybe we'll get lucky, and the perpetrator will try to unload the computer at one of them," Hodges added. "We'll also have a fingerprint tech come over and dust for prints, in case the burglar didn't wear gloves."

"Thanks officers, I appreciate your help," he replied, knowing there was not a lot the officers could do, and he'd most likely never see his computer again.

The medics helped him up, escorted him to the ambulance, and headed for the hospital. He couldn't tell if it was his wound that was giving him that awful feeling, or if there was more to this incident than a simple robbery.