Nathan’s Run

by John Gilstrap

  “Pleasant dreams,” Steadman said as he closed the door behind him. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” He laughed loud and long on that one. As the heavy deadbolt slid into its keeper, the klunk reverberated through the dank cell.

  So this is it, Nathan thought. Ended just like it began, in a cage for trying to protect yourself A wave of tears approached from behind his eyes, but he willed them away. You’ll have fifty or sixty years to cry. No sense wasting any now.

  Jesus, it was cold in there. He carefully grabbed a corner of the wool Army blanket from the cot and shook it open, checking for bugs. There were none. Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he sat on the edge of the cot, which promptly collapsed under his eighty-three pounds. One of the wooden legs had been booby-trapped to look whole. The impact with the concrete floor shook his various injuries to life.

  This time, he couldn’t stop the tears. Dickheads.

  Chapter 27

  Sergeant Watts finished his report on Nathan’s capture at 4:30, Li and slid the papers into an interoffice envelope addressed to Sheriff Murphy, who had leveraged his political connections to talk himself into a fancy corner office with a fireplace up in the County Administration Building.

  The more Watts thought about the irony of his luck, the more he grumped about the day ahead. He and his boys had made the collar that the big-city guys couldn’t make, but by the time the press arrived to give him credit, he’d be off duty, and the sheriff would hog it all. Shift change was only ninety minutes away. He wondered if there wasn’t some way he’d be able to pull double duty, and give himself an opportunity to witness the bedlam that would be descending on their little community very soon.

  The sound of the lobby door opening startled him. Visitors were rare at this hour. In this case, it was another cop, wearing a uniform Watts didn’t recognize.

  “Good morning,” Pointer said cheerily. “I understand there was some excitement here last night.”

  Watts smiled proudly, despite the inexplicable bad feeling he had about this guy. “Yessir, we got the bad guy. How can I help you?”

  “My name’s Robertson,” Pointer lied. “I’m with the Braddock County PD. The Bailey kid’s from my beat. Just here to help out, maybe take him back to Virginia after extradition.” He glanced around the lobby. “Looks like a pretty slow night.”

  Something in the way Robertson made the comment made Watts feel defensive. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s always exciting to fix a job that somebody else botched up.” Why the hell would somebody wear gloves on a night like this? he thought, noticing the visitor’s leather-clad hands.

  Pointer laughed. “Well, you got me there, pal. Meant no harm, actually. Place just seems empty.”

  Watts shrugged and looked down at his papers. “Except for me and the kid, it is empty.” Even as he said the words, he sensed that he had done a bad thing. Problem was, Watts had worked behind a desk for too long to react quickly enough to his senses.

  By the time he saw the stranger’s arm swing up to shoulder height, the bullet was already on its way.

  What was that?!

  Nathan was startled from near-sleep by a strange noise—phut-like the sound of a distant air rifle, followed by the loud clatter of falling furniture, and then silence. No one was picking up anything that had fallen. Wasn’t that strange?

  He couldn’t put it all together, yet he knew that anything out of the ordinary in a jail was bad news. Shedding his blanket, Nathan moved to the small window high in the door to see what he could observe. Even straining on tiptoes to get any view at all, his field of vision was limited to the empty cell across the hall.

  Something definitely was going on. He could hear odd movement out front, a moaning sound.

  Phut.

  There it was again! Only this time, it didn’t sound so much like an air rifle; it was more resonant thin that. Nathan swore he’d heard that sound before, or something like it, in a movie or on TV.

  When it came to him, his blood turned to ice. He had to breathe deeply and rapidly to keep from passing out. This couldn’t be happening to him. The nightmare just wouldn’t end.

  Pointer had snapped the first shot off a little too quickly, sending the round an inch high and a half-inch to the left, squarely into the cop’s breastbone. It was a kill-shot, sure enough, but it was a messy one. If he’d taken just an instant more, the Hydra-shock round would have blasted the man’s heart into a hundred shreds, bringing instant death and very little mess. As it was, the bullet flattened to the size of a quarter on impact, then tumbled randomly through the cop’s chest cavity, turning his thoracic organs to Jell-O. As the cop lay on the floor with his legs intertwined with the swivels of his chair, blood pumped like a garden hose from his chest wound, and pink sputum foamed from his nose and mouth.

  Considering himself an artist in his craft, Pointer detested messy work. He cursed himself under his breath as he strode casually to the sputtering man’s side. As long as the heart continued to pump, the gore would continue to spread. Pointer’s task was to pull the plug.

  The look in the dying man’s eyes showed more resignation than fear as Pointer’s second shot, this one carefully placed at point-blank range, reduced Watts’s front teeth to dust and continued on to bore through his soft palate, into his brain stem, where every command to every body system ceased instantly.

  The giant keys to the detention cells sat heaped on the desk, in clear view, in front of three security camera monitors. Pointer smiled and shook his head.

  These hayseeds have no idea what security means, he thought. Glancing around to make sure no one was near, he watched himself on the TV monitor as he leaned over Watts’s body and hoisted the keys with a finger, taking care to leave no footprints in the blood.

  Another two minutes, and he’d be done.

  The sound of approaching footsteps confirmed Nathan’s worst fears. His breathing came in quick gulps, like a panting dog’s, and he was feeling light-headed. Why are they doing this to me? His mind raced frantically, but there were no answers.

  This wasn’t Ricky, and it wasn’t Uncle Mark. Whoever this guy was, he was no drunk; he was a killer with a silencer on his gun, and he wanted Nathan dead badly enough that he was willing to kill a cop to do it.

  What did I do?

  There was no time for thought, only for action. He had to be ready for a fight, no matter how unlikely it was that he’d win. He needed a weapon. If only one of the bricks would come free…

  “Naaathan,” a voice sang from the hallway.

  It was the most frightening sound Nathan had ever heard. A weapon. There had to be a weapon…

  “Nathan Baileeeey! Olly Olly, oxenfree!” Pointer laughed.

  Shit! SHIT! Maybe I can lift the bed… The bed! The wonderful, broken goddamn bed! Nathan darted two quick steps to the cot and snapped free the broken leg. It wasn’t very big, but it was heavy. It just might…

  A key slipped into the lock in the heavy door. Klunk.

  Oh, God!

  Nathan dashed silently back to the hinges, using the door’s huge wooden panels as a shield. He saw the gun first. It came in quickly and made the turn, as though the intruder knew exactly where he was hiding. Nathan brought the cot leg down with both hands in a giant overhead arc onto the gun. It was the hardest he had ever swung at anything in his life, and it felt every bit as though he had impacted concrete, a shock wave reverberating through his arms and into his shoulders.

  The pistol clattered to the concrete, but didn’t go off. His first strike having been perfect, he recoiled for a second blow, but checked his swing and gasped audibly when he saw that his attacker was a cop!

  What…

  Pointer sensed the hesitation and saw his opportunity. He lunged at the boy.

  Nathan got in a second shot, but it was all arms-no power-glancing off the man’s shoulders just enough to unbalance him a bit. Nathan used the momentum for another home run swing to the side of his attacker’s knee. Pointer went do
wn with a snort, but never broke eye contact.

  “Who are you?!” Nathan shouted.

  Pointer didn’t answer, but instead reached for the pistol on the floor.

  Nathan screamed, “Don’t!”

  Pointer didn’t hesitate for an instant. With the speed of a striking rattlesnake, he snatched the gun into his hand and brought it around, preparing to shoot through the A-frame of his armpit.

  Nathan saw it coming and changed from home run hitter to woodsman, coming off his feet as he two-handed the makeshift baton down onto the back of Pointer’s head. The “cop” collapsed so thoroughly and quickly that Nathan thought for sure he’d killed him.

  He panicked. “Oh, God, I’m sorry!” he cried. “Why’d you do that? You made me do it! Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry!” It was like the JDC all over again. “Goddamn you!” he screamed, his shrill voice echoing through the empty hallway. “Why’d you do that?!”

  When Pointer stirred, Nathan nearly cried with delight. He hadn’t killed another cop after all! A bigger, infinitely more important question remained, however: Why were so many cops trying to kill him? And why were they killing each other?

  He had to get out. Again. He had to run. Again.

  What the hell is happening?

  The hallway was clear, the doors all open. He considered that it might be a trap, but dismissed the fear as irrelevant. He couldn’t stay, so he had to leave. If it was a trap, then they had him. That was that; end of story.

  His Reeboks squeaked as they tried to dig into the linoleum floor to propel him up the incline. To his right, he glanced at the bloody heap on floor and hoped silently that it was the asshole who had wracked his balls. Nathan didn’t even slow his stride as he plowed into the crash bar and threw open the front door of the police station and dashed out into the waiting night.

  His flight from the JDC had been filled with fear and hesitation. Tonight, there was only the need to run, fast and hard.

  Somewhere in all that darkness lay his future.

  Chapter 28

  “Jesus Christ!”

  The exclamation startled Pointer back to consciousness. His head felt like someone had lit a fire behind his eyes. That fucking kid.. .

  “Sarge! Oh my God!” Schmidtt’s voice was nearly a sob. He drew his weapon and chambered a round. “Steadman!” he called. “Steadman, are you here?”

  Pointer reoriented himself in an instant, and formulated a plan. He couldn’t believe that it all had become this complicated. “Steadman!”

  The new addition to the evening’s cast was an unwelcome intrusion, but Pointer could handle it. Just another bullet, that’s all. He needed to draw the new cop into the cell somehow. Easily enough done. Pointer groaned loudly. It took no effort to sound convincing.

  Little shit could have had a career ahead of him in the big leagues, he observed, trying to blink away the lingering fuzziness in his vision.

  Schmidtt ran the distance to the open cell in seconds, his footsteps stopping just out of sight beside the opening. After what Pointer thought a ridiculously long hesitation, Schmidtt swung into the doorway, crouched into a two-handed shooting position.

  His expression said it all. Who the hell are you?

  Pointer sat propped up against the far wall, his head lolling against his chest. He moaned again for effect, even as he noted the bulge of the cop’s chest protector through his uniform shirt. Head shot it is, Pointer thought.

  Schmidtt nervously scanned the room for the perpetrator who had done this to his fellow police officers. If he had even the slightest suspicion of the stranger on the floor, his eyes showed none of it. In fact, he looked entirely relieved to find that whatever danger there had been had passed him by. The tension drained visibly from his shoulders as he straightened and approached his fellow police officer.

  The moment Schmidtt holstered his weapon, Pointer brought his to bear. “Looking for me?” he said as he squeezed off a single round.

  The bullet entered Schmidtt’s head squarely at the crease of his lips, and sent him sprawling backwards into the hallway.

  “Brilliant police work,” Pointer chided, holding his aim for just a few seconds to make sure there was no movement before holster ing his own weapon.

  Such a simple fucking job, and from what anyone would be able to tell, he was no better at it than the slob Bailey had hired to make the hit. Goddamn kid was slippery. And fast. Pointer was surprised by the effort it took to rise to his feet. He never did get a good look at what the kid used for a bat, but he admired the skill and guts it took to use it so well.

  Mr. Slater was not going to be happy. Dead cops always brought more scrutiny than they were worth, and now there were two more of them. Questions were going to be asked. Pressure was going to be brought to bear, and Pointer knew enough about his boss’s business to know that people sometimes had to be sacrificed to keep the heat off. The more loyal and hard-working the sacrificial lamb, the more the right people were satisfied. That meant Pointer, unless he could turn this all around somehow.

  Everyone deserves a second chance, but no one deserves a third.

  As he stared at the uniformed body in the corridor, the outline of a plan began to form in his mind. Most people thought that Nathan was a cop killer already. Looking at the physical evidence in the jail, they might just draw the same conclusion again, especially if Pointer stacked the deck some.

  Stepping over Schmidtt’s legs to gain access to his holster, Pointer noted with satisfaction the near-total absence of blood. It was a perfect shot. He removed the cop’s pistol and stuck it into the waistband of his own trousers.

  “You’ve been a bad boy, Nathan,” he mocked as he strolled back toward the watch desk. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you that you shouldn’t shoot nice policemen?” His joke pleased him.

  Back at the watch desk, he leaned awkwardly over Watts’s body to reach the tape decks they used to record the security cameras. Three eject buttons produced three videotapes, which he tucked under his arm. When he looked at the clock, he was startled to see that it was nearly five o’clock. Hurrying his pace, he left through the front door.

  Chapter 29

  Fully an hour passed before Nathan heard the first siren; but r when they came, they came by the dozens. Though he didn’t dare peek out to take a look, his mind pictured scores of police cars zooming down the street, their tires screeching noisily as they slipped around sharp turns. Occasionally, from his hiding place in the stairwell of an apartment building, he could see red and blue lights painting the walls above him with their rotating beacons.

  He realized, looking back, that he’d made a huge mistake in his latest escape strategy, and he cursed himself for it now. As he left the police station, it never occurred to him that he would have this much time to get away. Had he realized that, he would have run much further before stopping to hide. As it was, he figured he’d put maybe a mile at most between himself and the jail. From what the television news had taught him about police practices over the past couple of days, he knew that his position placed him squarely inside the initial search perimeter.

  Unlike the JDC, which was located out of sight and out of mind in the country, this burg’s jail was an annex to the courthouse, such as it was, the most prominent structure in a downtown area dominated by storefronts and alleyways. He’d passed the silhouette of a tall pencil-like monument in what had to be the town square, but the trees and shrubs that surrounded it were only three rows thick, offering no cover for him. As he dashed through the town, every window was dark, and not a single person or vehicle moved, making him feel all the more conspicuous and exposed as the only person stirring the thick silence of the humid night.

  His fear of being noticed drove him to seek cover in the graffiti-stained stairwell. Below the sidewalk, and hidden behind five galvanized trash cans, he was invisible from the street, but the sun would rise soon, leaving him unprotected and out in the open.

  Nathan didn’t know what to do. The sun was already pa
inting brilliant orange brushstrokes on the horizon, so his options for running on foot or even boosting a car were no longer viable. And he certainly couldn’t stay where he was. Damn those cops, he thought. If only they’d minded their own business, he’d be at the border by now, worrying about evading Mounties.

  The old feeling of hopelessness began to wash over him again, but he pushed it aside. No doubt about it, his plan was all shot to hell; but he had more immediate concerns to address.

  Funny how the obvious is often the last thing you see. As his mind sought for a new plan, the solution first appeared in the form of a question: Where do these steps go, anyway?

  In the darkness of the night, the stairwell had been only a black hole against the white concrete; but as the darkness turned to shades of gray, he became aware of a door to his left, obviously leading to a basement.

  The instant he saw the door, he realized he’d discovered his only option, yet he hesitated before moving. Basements were places where rats and roaches lived; where it was always dark and always damp, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Even in the nice homes of his childhood, basements had scared the bejeebers out of him. The specter of what horrible creatures might dwell in a place like this—both real and imagined ‘madehim’ shiver.

  Might as well be in jail as be in this basement, he thought critically.

  But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? There was a big difference—a huge difference—between a basement and a jail. He could leave a basement any time he wanted to.

  As yet another siren approached in the near-light of dawn, Nathan gathered his courage and entered the black basement through the door to his left, which, happily enough, was unlocked.

  The phone rang six times before Warren even heard it through his sleep. It was like crawling out of a deep hole in his mind; the noise was at first processed as a part of a dream, making him wonder why the beautiful stranger fondling him would make such a piercing noise. By the third ring, he knew it was part of the real world; but it took two more for him to realize that the current real world was rooted in the darkness of the Spear and Musket Motor Lodge.