Threads: A Thriller

by T. R. Ultra

  I limped along the alleyway ever so hurt, ever so slow. Voices were coming closer, I heard them escalating the mountain, the rattling of metal in their hands. Strangers came out of their homes, of their squeaking doors, ready for a work day. But they all passed by me as mere extras on the stage of terror and ruin into where my life had been sliding since day one in Rio.

  The old man was not on his bench anymore. Of course he wouldn’t be. He had seen me. And he knew a squad was coming. I found Fátima’s door the same way I left it: closed.

  Fátima wouldn’t be inside the room anymore. She was already gone, everyone in the area was gone. Violence was a regular, faceless visitor to their lives. It never left witnesses behind.

  I turned the doorknob and pushed it open, willing to conceal myself from the voices coming in my wake. I walked through the door, swung it shut, and then I saw it.

  Fátima was lying on the ground. She was in the same, exact position I last saw her. And she didn’t budge when I went back inside her home, except for her eyeballs.

  Was it really that bad? I somehow believed that Fatima’s paralyzation would be only a short-term effect due to her falling against the freezer. A minute long despair that would soon disappear. But after a several minutes, it hadn’t.

  I walked toward her to stand slightly bent over the broom, right beside her head. Her eyes were red and wide and wet.

  “Where is it, Fátima? Where is the gun?”

  I tried to sound nonchalant, hopeful that indifference would promptly repulse any plea that she might consider bringing to the mirror of her eyes.

  She only stared at me, stiffly.

  “The gun, Fátima!” I shouted. I had no idea whether her hearing had been affected by her fall. But I heard voices seeping in through the crevices in the wall, and I had to be quick.

  Fátima’s eyes froze on me, but for a brief, split of second moment, her eyelids flickered and she looked up, toward a bent kitchen cabinet.

  Her body language betrayed her. Her eyes went straight to where she had hidden the gun. Had she tried to tell me where it were, she would not glimpse so fast at it.

  The Glock G17 had been wrapped in old newspaper, put away inside the kitchen cabinet.

  I heaved myself across the room, a breeze of energy brushing over my skin. I was the same person as before, but now, the gun in my hand, I had means to defend myself.

  Chapter 32

  I heard my name in the wind. The vowels sounded weak, sprinkled in the draught passing through, but I heard it. Someone concealed in Gloria Santa alleyways had cast my name around the slum, either trying to lure me into a trap, or passing directions to a partner in crime.

  My body was weak, but my mind sharp enough to avoid falling into their claws.

  With my name, another sound reached my ears, propelled by the gust that swept the Gloria Santa gutters. A rusty sound that screeched high in the sky, a rattling of steel that conveyed movement.

  After leaving Fátima’s home, I hobbled along the cement path, squeezed between dwellings, heading upward. I was not sure of what direction to take, so I took the only one that would lead me away from those climbing the slum to catch me.

  I glared at the sky through the gaps between two buildings. Trolleys were swaying down the support cables that bound the head of Gloria Santa to its foot. The cable car was up and running and squeaking.

  Going down one of those trolleys became my one and only option. My chances had just improved. Not only now did I know that I had to keep going up the slopes, but I also had guidance, stretched across the sky, that would lead me to my goal.

  The problem was walking in that white gown. On the slopes of Gloria Santa I looked like an escaped patient, enveloped in a cylindrical cloth that covered all from shoulders to knees. I had nowhere to conceal the pistol, not even panties. And even if I had, I knew I must be ready for any threat that might appear. The risk of carrying a pistol in open sight was lower than losing precious time while trying to unsheathe it from concealment.

  My body screamed that something was wrong, that I was a stranger in that place. The broom shouted that I was hurt. And the pistol stated that no one would stand between me and my goal.

  But what about Renato? Would his body still be on the Cable car platform? Would its floor still be stained by his blood? It was only last night that he died . . . only last night. Wasn’t it?

  No, no thinking of Renato. He would want me to go back there, to take those trolleys down, to leave safe. Maybe I could leave flowers on the platform, something to honor his memory, to speak my pain. But there were no gardens among the withered walls of Gloria Santa.

  The wind silenced. The more I went up the slopes, the screeching of iron grew louder, but the voices saying my name silenced. At each step I unraveled myself from that entanglement of corruption engulfing Rio. I could see it on the faces of those people, slum dwellers. They were startled after seeing me walk through pathways, gaped their mouths open, hid themselves inside their cement box homes.

  I could feel their willingness to capture me. To give me away. Even to kill me had they had the opportunity. But now they wouldn’t be able to do so.

  It was then that I laughed aloud.

  “No more bitching!” I shouted. A cry of freedom.

  Windows swung shut as I passed them.

  When I snuck into the cable car’s platform, everything seemed normal. Trolleys were going past its loading site, people hopping in and out, but no lines had been formed to wait for them. I thought the place would be crowded with locals, but I was wrong.

  The cable car was a clear connection to the bottom of the slum. An easy trip, safely hung away from the terrors on the hillside bellow. The gate that led to the loading platform, where Renato and I had been when the gunshot found his chest, was opened. But to reach the trolleys, I had to make it past the turnstiles.

  I could make easy work of it. It was only a matter of jumping over it and entering the car.

  But a man stood beside the turnstiles, checking everyone’s tickets, and that made things harder.

  I moved closer to him. Some guys around stepped away. And the man, instead of heeding tickets, glared at my gun.

  I’d met him before. I didn´t know the precise features of his time-beaten, etched with wrinkles face. But I remembered his overall scoop-shouldered, tiresome, body manners.

  The night Renato had been killed, he was the man that attended us at that same cable car platform, behind the closed gate. He was the man who denied us help, and to whom Renato had hoisted the gun to prevent further harm to us. All to no avail.

  “I need to come in, and I don’t have any money” I said, indifferent as to whether he was able to understand. But his gaped eyes, fixed against mine, hinted that he also recognized me.

  He raised his hand, stepped backwards.

  I hadn’t raised the gun, hadn’t threatened his life. Oh, I most definitely took offense at his body language.

  “I’m not a criminal. Can’t you see how destroyed I am? Can’t you see it?” I waved the broom in his face.

  He stepped farther away, said something in Portuguese. That I took as a consent for my coming in without a ticket.

  I struggled to pass over the turnstile. My body felt like pain in solid form. I had limited movement in all joints. I heaved myself over the turnstile, sat on its cold steel, and turned around to set my feet inside the platform.

  The cable car was mine. No one came into the loading platform after me. The man leaned back against the control room wall. A trolley was coming.

  He waited. The coming car slid its door open. I was a step away from going down. Of letting everything behind. Of reaching the foot of Gloria Santa. Of finding my way to the US Embassy in Rio.

  I just needed a taxi driver to collaborate with me. It was much easier to trust people with a gun in my hand.

  But then I realized that the old man might spoil my plan. I would enter the trolley, head down, and then that man would make his calls, and th
e infernal loop would start again. And from this new one I might never be able to come back.

  I stepped away from the trolley. Pointed the gun at him. Now he had a reason to fear me.

  “Hey, into the trolley, come on,” I said. I waved the gun in my hand to make him understand.

  The man glowered at me, shook his head. Another trolley was coming into the loading platform. This second one I would not let pass by.

  “Come on, now!”

  The man ambled towards me, turned his head backward. He exchanged glances with people outside the platform, behind the turnstiles. They had tickets in hand, but didn’t dare to enter. They wanted to see blood, the old violence of always. Renato’s blood had bathed the floor they stood on, and now they wanted me to paint the floor at the loading platform.

  “Get the fuck out of here, you vampires. Vampires!” I screamed.

  The man cringed in fear, hunched his back even more.

  He hopped into the trolley, so did I.

  Inside the car there was no place to sit, only bars and poles where people could keep their bodies from falling. Its windows were high, started on my shoulders up to the ceiling, and the rest was metal. It slid out from the platform, the trolley stuttered and honked as it grazed on its iron tracks.

  I took a fast glimpse outside, the face of the Gloria Santa slum draped in brick and asbestos roofs, all conveying that same seedy feeling that pervaded the slum down to its crevices.

  I ordered the old man to sit at the front of the car. I aimed the pistol at him the whole time.

  The car swayed under a slight wind licking it sideways. The bottom was coming closer each second. I could feel the change of density in the air as it passed through the windows. It was the fresh air of nature, the breeze of the ocean, free from the stench that corrupted the atmosphere of Gloria Santa.

  I closed my eyes. Breathed in to fully appreciate the purity I missed so much.

  Then the trolley swayed to a halt and I jolted forward.

  Chapter 33

  I tried to keep my balance, hands groping the air searching for the steel pole, but the invisible force over my body was too big to handle. I fell headlong onto the grimy floor, broom plunging alongside me. I splashed my face against the metal surface, my body slid forward, toward the man crouched at the front part of the car.

  I didn’t let go of the pistol. Neither when streaming down the gutters flooding with rainwater, nor when skimming that filthy car steel base.

  Inside the trolley, however, instead of the mistreated dog to which pain I could empathize, what greeted me at the end of the way was the opportunistic strike of a man whose evil I did not share.

  He jumped over me, his hands clasping my hair, pressing my face against the floor. I felt his other hand going straight for the gun. The nape of my neck ached deeply under his pressure. After so many wounds, I learned to focus only on the one aching the most. Which in the past hours had been my sprained knee.

  But now it was my neck again.

  I was unable to move my head. He flung my hand against the floor, tried to open it and grab the pistol. I resisted.

  He was an old man, stronger than me, but not capable of snatching the gun out of my grip with only one of his hands. He needed both.

  He let go of my head, the pressure in my neck suddenly released. A sharp pain flashed inside my head. Whether it came from outside or inside I couldn’t tell. The man grabbed my hand and the gun with both hands, wedged his fingers between mine and the handgrip, started pulling them out.

  I was about to lose it.

  My head was free. I writhed around,his body hunched over me. The man had practically sat on top of me, his boots close to my face, his butt on my nose.

  Even though I couldn’t get a glimpse of my hand, I could feel it. And with this unseen path in my mind, I slithered my other arm under his body and reinforced my grip on the pistol, tangling my fingers with his.

  The old man went even further, even harder, and put his knee on my breast, squeezing my breath out. Then he slid sideways, his thigh next to my face. The gun started slipping from my hand.

  Desperate, I bit him. I went straight for his thighs, covered by a worn out jeans months away from the last washing. The first bite only grazed my teeth. He didn’t seem to notice my attempt.

  I opened my jaws wider and went for a second chomp, down to a part where his flesh folded into a lump. Teeth fit around the flesh, I bit down with all I had left inside.

  He screamed. His grip faltered. The pistol was firmly in my hand. He wiggled in a dreadful dance to get free from my teeth, but I didn’t let go.

  One of his hands let go of the pistol. On the corner of my vision, I saw it soaring high towards the ceiling, then the fist swooshing down against my temple. All went white, the taste of blood filled in my mouth.

  Was it my blood, or his?

  My body went all tight, I saw Marlon coming toward me. He had come to help, to bring me home. But then, behind him, I saw Paulo Pinto and Roberto Rôla. They also had come for me. They wanted to use me. They wanted to kill me.

  It was then I pulled the trigger. And pulled it again.

  The urge to fight disappeared, the grip in my hands released. I slouched my arms to the ground, the weight of that man spread over me. I breathed in, tasted the blood again, and tried to remember Marlon—no success.

  Only darkness pervaded my mind. All black. Because It was the second time I had killed someone in Rio. The second killing a in a few days, not to mention the grave injury I had caused Fátima.

  It all had been to stay alive. I hadn’t chosen to be brought into such an extreme situation of having to use a gun. They were the ones, all of them, who wished to reduce my existence to achieve their goals. I had to play with the tools I had been given.

  It was depressing. I knew that all these terrible pictures, these awful sounds and smells, would never leave my mind. Not even when I went back home, draped in my sheets, they wouldn’t leave me alone. They would never—

  “Who’s there?” I said. I opened my eyes, stared at the ceiling. The trolley swung to and fro. I heard a name again, it came in through the windows, billowing in with the breeze. But I was high in the slum, wasn’t I? No voice could reach me here.

  My descent stopped, someone stopped the car. The emergency brake was what thrust my body forward and forced me to kill that man. People were aware of my running away. And they would not take it easily. These guys will never stop, not until I’m captured.

  I pushed his body aside. He died face down and I let him remain that way. It was not my intent to look at his face, to see if he closed his eyes after the gunshots. His blood, spilt over my legs, dyed my gown red.

  I elbowed myself up, heaved my torso to sit straight. Blood streamed down my face, down through my eyes and into my mouth. I raised my hand, touched my forehead, and figured that a gash had been opened above my eyebrow.

  I reached over for the broom, I groped for a firm spot on the floor, some way to hoist myself up. Then I moved, piece by piece, to rise to the height of windows and face outside.

  Blood accumulated on the floor, streaming up and down the surface, following the rhythm of the ocean breeze. The steel surface had raised patterns, created to be skid resistant, but it only served as an intricate path for the blood to drift.

  The car had stopped high in the sky, far away from rooftops, even farther from the loading platforms, either the one on top or at the bottom of the slum. Who called my name?

  No, it was not my name. I only heard a noise. A noise coming from the wind, coming from the birds flying overhead, coming from the hinges and cables and pulleys.

  It was only a noise. I was isolated. Alone. And aware that all those eyes on the ground were on me. The valuable asset hanging over the favela.

  And now I was stuck. It hadn’t occurred to me that the car I was on might halt to a full stop as I went down its cables. I had taken the control man with me, dead beside my feet. But someone else who knew how to op
erate the cables was left behind. Someone hit that big red button that screamed emergency and stopped the car from moving, the blood from running.

  But I still had my gun. And outside the slum’s inner walls, the whole city could see me.

  Why did they stop the car? Why did they stop it?

  A noise came in again. Someone gurgled indistinct words. So indistinct that they might be gurgling my name. Yes, it was coming from the sky. A gurgling in the clouds, a helicopter whirred closer to hover over my flying car.

  Or perhaps to riddle my body with holes.

  The helicopter was not the police one I had seen on the soccer field. This one was brighter, coated in white and yellow and orange, and instead of conveying danger, it wanted to be seen.

  It was a news helicopter. It carried cameras instead of rifles.

  “Help! I’m here! I need help!” I screamed, my voice faint through the openings of the trolley’s jammed windows. And I could bet they heard it, because after flying a bit closer, the helicopter stood still in mid-air, staring at me.

  My fate was about to change.

  Chapter 34

  Rio was a city of many mounts, most of them populated by jumbles of ramshackle homes like I’d seen in Gloria Santa. A few of them , however, were seemingly inhabitable, as its vertical rocky faces demotivated even the boldest squatter from building a tent and starting a new community.

  Past the helicopter, soaring towards the clouds, I noticed, for the first time, Christ the Redeemer with his arms outstretched. It stood on top of Corcovado, Rio’s highest, grayest rocky hill.

  Before flying in, I thought of paying it a visit, of contemplating the city from such an advantageous point of view. But now, I’d rather see it in postcards or on the internet.

  Looking up from inside the trolley, I swore the statue had been perfectly aligned with the slum, its arms opened for me, its face looking down offering pity. It was as though it was telling me that divine providence was on its way. The Lord writes straight with crooked lines, says the Bible.