Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  had gotten sick. He felt as if his increasing effort was the

  distillation of every race he had ever entered, every marathon he had

  ever endured. Inhaling deep lung fulls of air, pumping his legs faster,

  stretching them farther, he surged between buildings on the opposite

  side of the square and kept racing into the darkness behind them.

  This was the direction from which he had initially come down off the

  ridge and across the meadow, approaching the campus. In a frenzy of

  exertion, he managed to increase speed, spurred by the buzz of another

  bullet parting air near his side. They've crossed the square, he

  thought. They saw where I went and followed me.

  From the square, he heard the roar of cars. They'll soon drive behind

  these buildings. There's no way I can out run ...

  He changed direction just in time, almost banging into the side of a

  building. His eyes, stung by the glare of the arc lights in the square,

  were only now adjusting to the darkness, and in confusion, he took a

  moment to realize that he'd reached the stables.

  Men shouted behind him. A bullet struck the stone side of the building.

  Pittman whirled, went down on his left knee, propped his right arm on

  his other knee to steady his trembling aim, and fired toward the men

  pursuing him. They cursed and dove to the ground. A car fishtailed

  around a building, its headlights blazing, and Pittman fired toward

  them, missing the headlights but shattering the windshield.

  Immediately he ducked back, knowing that the muzzle flashes from his

  pistol had made him a target. More bullets struck the side of the

  building, splintering stone. From somewhere on the other side, horses

  whinnied in panic. Pittman swung around a corner, approaching them. He

  reached a fence and opened its gate, scrambling back as horses charged

  through, escaping into the night. The more confusion, the better. He

  had to keep distracting his pursuers.

  Then racing across the horse pen toward the opposite fence, he heard the

  roar of the cars speeding toward the stables. Have to get ahead of

  them.

  A horse had stopped on the other side of the fence. With no other

  choice, Pittman clambered onto the rails. He'd once written a story

  about the stables near Central Park. He'd taken a few lessons. His

  instructor had emphasized: "When afraid of falling, keep your legs

  squeezed as tightly as you can around the horse's sides and clamp Your

  arms around the horse's neck. "

  Pittman did exactly that now, leaping off the fence, landing on the

  horse, startling it, clinging as it reared, but he was prepared and the

  horse wasn't. Compacting his muscles in desperation, he managed to stay

  on, and now the horse wasn't rearing. It was galloping, hoping to throw

  off its burden. Pittman clung harder, jolted by the horse's rapid

  hoofbeats. He leaned so severely forward, clutching the horse's bobbing

  neck, that he didn't think he provided a silhouette for the gunmen.

  From behind, the headlights of several rapidly approaching cars lit up

  the meadow around and ahead of him. The roar of the engines and the

  noise Of the galloping horse were too great for Pittman to be able to

  hear if bullets whizzed past him. but he had to assume that his

  pursuers were shooting at him, and he furiously hoped that the uneven

  meadow, its bumps and rises and dips, would throw Off the gunmen's aim

  in the darkness.

  Without warning, the horse changed direction. UnPrepared, Pittman felt

  his grip slipping, his body shifting to the right. About to topple, he

  clamped his legs so tightly around the horse that the Pain Of the effort

  made him wince. His arms completely encircled the horse's nec as cars

  sped nearer, bumping across the meadow, their headlights bobbing,

  gleaming, as the horse changed direction again, but this time Pittman

  anticipated, and although his body shifted, he felt in control.

  He was wrong. Deeper shadows loomed before him, suddenly illuminated by

  the headlights. The forest seemed to materialize out of nothing, a wall

  of trees and bushes forming an apparently unbreachable barrier that so

  startled the horse, it reared up, at the same time twisting sideways,

  and Pittman's grip was finally jerked free. As the horse's front hoofs

  landed heavily and the animal twisted again, more sharply, to avoid

  colliding with the trees, Pittman flew in the opposite direction.

  Frantically praying that the horse wouldn't kick backward, he struck the

  ground, flipped, and rolled, the wind knocked out of him, the pistol in

  his jacket pocket slamming against his ribs.

  He rolled farther, urgently trying to avoid the panicked horse, to save

  himself from being trampled. Immediately the horse galloped away, and

  Pittman faced the headlights speeding toward him- He stumbled to his

  feet, struggled to breathe, and lurched toward bushes, stooping to

  conceal himself. Bullets snapped twigs and shredded bark from trees. He

  crouched lower, hurrying among the thickly needled branches of pine

  trees. Bullets walloped into trees and sliced needles that fell upon

  him. Hearing car doors being opened, he spun, saw the headlights

  through the trees, and fired, surprising himself that he actually

  shattered one of the lights.

  At once his pistol no longer worked. In dismay, he pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. The .45 felt off balance in his hand. Its slide

  remained back, its firing chamber open. Heart sinking, he understood.

  He had used all his anmiunition. He had more in his jacket pocket, but

  his pursuers were so close that there wasn't time for him to reload, and

  he. didn't have confidence in his ability to remove the pistol's

  magazine and refill it in the dark.

  Not while men were shooting at him.

  Not while he was on the run, which he immediately began doing, scurrying

  uphill through the murky forest. Several times he bumped painfully

  against trees. In the darkness, he failed to see deadfalls and stumps

  and tripped, losing his balance, hitting the ground. Each time, he

  ignored his pain and surged upward, moving faster, harder, spurred by

  the noises of gunmen chasing him. Flashlights blazed. Men shouted.

  Pittman strained to figure out where he was. He had entered on this

  side of the valley-that much he was sure of. But there the trees had

  stopped on a ridge, giving way to grassland that sloped toward the

  meadow. Here the trees were at the bottom of the slope. In which

  direction was the grassy hill? He had to find it. He had to get to that

  ridge. Because past the trees and the fence beyond it, Jill was waiting

  with the car. "I hear him!"

  "Over there!"

  "Spread out!"

  Pittman raised his right arm to shield his eyes from needled branches.

  Enveloped by darkness, he climbed with less energy, his legs weary, his

  lungs protesting. He kept angling to the right, choosing that direction

  arbitrarily, needing some direction, hoping to reach the grassy slope.

  Without warning he broke free, nearly falling on the open hill. Hurry.

  Got to reach the top before they're out of the trees, before they seer />
  me. His only advantage was that he was no longer making noise, snapping

  branches, crashing through bushes, scraping past trees. But the gunmen

  were definitely making noise. Pit could hear them charging through the

  underbrush behind him, and responding to an intense flood of adrenaline,

  he braced his legs, took a deep breath, then struggled up the slope, its

  incline becoming steeper, its wet grass slippery.

  Briefly his senses failed him. The next thing he realized, he was

  lumbering over the top of the ridge, men were yelling below him, their

  flashlights silhouetting him, and then he was past the ridgeline,

  entering more trees, colliding with the fence, clutching it, gasping.

  "Here!" a man yelled behind him, flashlight bobbing.

  Pittman strained to climb the wooden fence, dropped to the other side,

  and staggered ahead, enveloped again by trees.

  "Jill!" His voice was hoarse, his words forced. "'Jill, it's me! It's

  Matt!"

  "He's not far ahead!" a man yelled.

  "Jill! Where are you? I can't see you! It's me! It's Matt!"

  Flashlights reached the fence, their beams stabbing into the darkness,

  revealing Pittman among the trees.

  A bullet nicked his jacket. Another singed his hair.

  Gunshots roared among the trees. Pittman didn't understand. His

  pursuers had been using silencers. Why would they have taken them off?

  Why would they want to make noise?

  They didn't. They hadn't. The gunshots came from ahead of him. The

  men were sprawling on the ground behind the fence, yelling to one

  another to turn off their flashlights, to stop making themselves

  targets. Bullets struck the fence. The shots"continued from ahead of

  Pittman.

  "I'm here!" Jill screamed.

  Pittman saw the muzzle flashes from the pistol she fired. "I see you!"

  "Stay down!" she yelled.

  Pittman dropped to his hands and knees, scurrying among bushes, reaching

  her.

  "Hurry! Get in the car!"

  He opened the passenger door and flinched as the interior light came on,

  revealing him. After diving in, he slammed the door shut and watched in

  amazement as Jill-who was already in the car and had been firing through

  her open window turned the ignition key, stomped the accelerator, and

  rocketed from a gap in the trees onto the narrow, winding country road.

  "Thank God, thank God," was all he could say. The words came out

  between his urgent attempts to breathe, his chest heaving, falling, his

  body shaking as sweat streamed off his face and soaked his clothes.

  The Duster skidded around a sharp corner. Expertly controlling the car,

  Jill immediately increased speed. The car's headlights revealed the

  twists and turns of the two-lane road.

  Quickly Pittman turned to see if headlights followed them.

  "Not yet," Jill said. "They have to go back anduse the lane from the

  school. The gate's two miles away. By the time they get onto this

  road"

  She reached another straightaway and again increased speed.

  "Thank God," Pittman continued to murmur. "When I didn't see you, when

  I yelled but you didn't answer - "I didn't know what to do. I heard

  shooting from the school, then something that sounded like fire alarms."

  "Yes." Pittman caught his breath, explaining.

  "I heard car engines," Jill said. "then there was shooting among the

  trees, and suddenly you came over the fence, stumbling toward me,

  yelling. The flashlights behind you, those men chasing you ... All I

  could think of was that I had to distract them. You told me that to

  fire the pistol I didn't need to cock it. I only had to pull the

  trigger. I didn't bother to aim. I just leaned out the car window,

  pointed the gun up, and started shooting. My God, it holds a lot of

  bullets. "

  "Fifteen.

  "And it jerks, and my ears are ringing from the noise... When I saw

  where you were, I pointed the gun away from you and aimed toward the

  fence."

  She braked, steered sharply around a curve, and pressed harder on the

  accelerator.

  Pittman shook his head in amazement. "Where did you learn to drive

  like... ?"

  "My father's a nut about Porsches. One of the few fatherdaughter things

  he ever did was teach me about racing. If this car had a clutch and a

  standard shift, I could really show you about gaining speed around

  curves. "

  Pittman's hands wouldn't stop shaking.

  "And you're bleeding," Jill said.

  "What?"

  "There's blood smeared on your face, your hands, and your clothes. You

  must have scraped yourself on that wall or running through those trees.

  Or else .

  "Say it."

  "I hope you weren't hit."

  "No. I don't feel any pain."

  Jill stared ahead, speeding under a covered bridge.

  "I said, I don't feel any pain."

  "That's not always a good sign."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Sometimes a wound traumatizes nerves in the area and stops them from

  sending messages.

  Shaking worse, Pittman felt along his legs, his torso, his

  . "Everything seems to be all right. " Surprising himself, he yawned

  and realized that he'd been doing so for quite a while. "What's wrong

  with me? I'm worried that you might have been shot and yet I can't stop

  yawning."

  "Shock. The adrenaline's wearing off. Your body's telling you it needs

  a long rest."

  "But I don't feel sleepy."

  "Right." Jill turned on the car's heater.

  Pittman yawned again.

  "Just to humor me," Jill said, "why don't you crawl in the backseat,

  stretch out as best you can, and close your eyes for a while?"

  "The backseat. That reminds me." With difficulty, Pittman squirmed

  into the darkness of the backseat and zipped open his gym bag. "What

  are you doing?" Jill asked.

  "Reloading. Hand me your pistol. I've got other magazines from the

  gunmen who were at your apartment. I'd better reload yours, too - "

  Jill muttered something. "I didn't hear you."

  "Guns. I swore I'd never touch one of the damned things. Now here I .

  . . " The Duster's slant-six engine roared as Jill drove faster.

  The silence woke him. Piittman blinked, disoriented, realized that he

  was slumped in the car's backseat, and squinted ahead toward Jill behind

  the steering wheel. The sky was gray with false dawn. The car was

  stopped.

  "Where are we?" Groggy, he sat up and winced from stiffness.

  "A motel in Greenfield, Massachusetts. That's about ten miles south of

  Vermont and a hundred and fifty miles from the school. That ought to be

  far enough to keep them from finding us." Jill hesitated. "For now."

  "You must be exhausted."

  "I shouldn't be. Normally I'd be getting off my shift at the hospital

  in an hour. I'd work out, eat a light dinner, watch something I taped

  on the VCR, and go to sleep around noon. "But this isn't 'normally.'

  "No kidding. You'd better stay in the car while I see if the desk clerk

  will accept cash to rent a room. With that dried blood on you, you're

  not exactly presentable. I'll tell the clerk we
were visiting relatives

  in Waterford, Connecticut. We thought we could drive all night and get

  home, but finally we're exhausted."

  Jill got out of the car, went into the motel's office, and returned with

  a key.

  The room was on the bottom level, in back of the motel, a location Jill

  had requested, telling the clerk they didn't want to be disturbed by

  morning traffic.

  No one was around when she unlocked the door and Pittman followed her

  in. They set the gym bag and small suitcase on the floor, assessing the

  unit. It was plain but clean, its air stale but not offensive.

  "I asked for a nonsmoker's room." Jill locked the door. "The clerk

  assured me the television works. There's no one in the rooms on either

  side of us, so we won't be disturbed that way, either. "

  "Twin beds," Pittman said.

  "Lucky. "

  "Yeah." Sex was the last thing on Pittman's mind. Nonetheless, he felt

  self-conscious.

  "You'd better get in the bathroom and take your clothes off. We have to

  find out how badly you were injured." Jill reached into Pittman's gym

  bag and pulled out a first-aid kit that they'd bought, along with the

  flashlight and Pittman's wool coat, the day before.

  "I bet you were a drill sergeant on the ward."