Nathan’s Run

by John Gilstrap

  “The running’s over, Nathan,” Michaels concluded. “You have to trust somebody now, and I’m all you’ve got. Do you know where the Lewis and Clark Memorial is in the square?”

  “You mean the tall pointy tower?” Nathan said. “Yeah.”

  “Make your way over there and we’ll find each other. I’m wearing a brown suit with a blue shirt and a striped tie. You’ll see me. I look like a cop.”

  In spite of the danger, Nathan smiled. “I guess you know what I look like,” he offered.

  “The whole world knows what you look like, pal. Now, move! You’ve got no time left.”

  Nathan hung up the phone and looked at Billy.

  “Well, do you trust him?” Billy asked.

  Nathan thought for a moment before answering. “Yes.” The answer surprised both of them.

  The commercials had run a full five minutes, giving them an extra 270 seconds of privacy, not because Denise had been conned into it by the cop, but because she really feared for Nathan’s safety. When the spots were done, she and Enrique reentered the world of electronic noise, only to hear the screeching tone of a telephone that had been left off the hook.

  “Well, folks,” she announced to her audience. “It seems we’re all alone here.. “

  Billy’s directions to the obelisk were brief and complete, matching Nathan’s dimming memories of his flight the night before. The young fugitive was impressed by the distance he’d actually run: over two miles, according to Billy.

  Nathan hurriedly tied his shoes and went to the front door, where Billy was waiting with Barney to say goodbye.

  Nathan smiled sadly and nodded. “Thanks, Billy,” he said. “You didn’t have to help me. I appreciate it.”

  Billy looked down at the floor. “Sure I did,” he joked halfheartedly. “You’re a murderer. You might have killed me.” He reached into his pants pocket and handed the older boy a three-inch-tall X-Men figure, Cyclops. “Here,” he said. “He brings me good luck.”

  Nathan felt moved. He took the toy gratefully and stuffed it into the front pocket of his ragged denim shorts. “Thanks,” he said. At once, they both became aware of the sounds of sirens growing in the distance. “I gotta go,” Nathan said, and he disappeared out the apartment door.

  Nathan’s plan was to use the back stairs; to get out the way he’d gotten in, through the basement. Somehow that made more sense to him than going out the front door. When he’d taken only three steps down the hall, he heard the pounding of running feet behind him.

  “Hey, Nathan!” a voice called.

  Nathan’s body reacted to the sound of the voice even before his brain could process its source. He sprawled face-first onto the stained carpet of the hallway, like a baseball player sliding into third, just as he heard the familiar phut, and a tiny geyser of plaster fountained from the wall. He shoulder-rolled to his left as a second bullet slammed into the spot he’d just occupied on the carpet.

  Nathan scrambled on all fours to a sharp turn in the hallway to his right and dove the last four feet for cover behind the wall. Plaster dust stung his eyes as a shot aimed for his head blasted through the outside corner of the wall instead. Just before the last shot was fired, Nathan caught a glimpse of his attacker through his peripheral vision. He was dressed in a cop’s uniform.

  Nathan never stopped. He shoulder-rolled again to his feet and charged down the second hallway, ignoring the bitter profanity that exploded from the cop. Only fifty feet more, and he’d be at the stairwell door, over which only a bare lightbulb remained in the sign that had once read EXIT. Twenty feet now, and the pounding of his own footsteps was joined by the heavier stride of the cop, beating a bass counterpoint to the quick staccato of his borrowed sneakers. He knew better than to look behind him.

  When he heard Pointer’s footsteps stop abruptly, Nathan knew he was in trouble. Without a conscious thought, he zigzagged the last ten feet to the exit. He heard the suppressed gunshot at the same instant as an invisible fist slammed into the right side of his rib cage and a neat round hole appeared in the metal door three inches in front of him. The impact of the blow forced an oof sound from his lungs, and he staggered as he propelled himself through the fire door.

  Nathan didn’t run down the stairs; he flew down them, using the steel railings to vault from one landing to the next, barely touching a single concrete step on the way.

  When he reached the bottom, he risked a quick look back up the stairwell. Pointer was two levels behind, but gaining quickly.

  Nathan whirled away from the interior stairwell and tore through the basement on his way to sunlight. The clutter of boxes and equipment all seemed so harmless now. A drunk arose from a corner near the exit door, perhaps intending to relieve Nathan of a few dollars, but he shrank away from whatever he saw burning in the boy’s eyes.

  Propelled by fear, Nathan plowed through the exterior door as if it weren’t there, slamming it against the wall hard enough to break the doorknob. Thirteen steps later, he was at ground level, sprinting across the street toward a schoolyard. The sirens were extremely close now.

  The drunk startled Pointer as he pursued his prey through the basement, earning him a bullet through the heart.

  By the time the Hit Man had cleared the exterior stairs and reached ground level, the first of the arriving police cars was already visible down the street, and Nathan had started to blend in with the schoolyard scenery across the street. Just before disappearing around the far corner of the school building, the boy paused and gave him the finger.

  Pointer found that amusing. In a smooth and well-practiced motion, Pointer unthreaded the silencer from his weapon and surreptitiously slipped the Magnum back into its holster. He nodded politely to the first string of arriving cop cars and strolled casually across the street toward the school.

  Chapter 37

  Petrelli called Stephanie back, and within minutes, they’d r matched the telephone number to its address. And because the number originated with a third party, Petrelli remained compliant with Judge Verone’s order. The arrest would stick.

  So fuck you right back, Michaels, Petrelli thought with a smile.

  Sheriff Murphy had dispatched all available units—some thirteen police vehicles—to the Vista Plains Apartments to take Nathan Bailey into custody. Just as moths are drawn to lights, television news crews were drawn to the sounds of the sirens. Those who’d been monitoring the police scanner knew that they were making their move on the Bailey boy. Those who’d been monitoring The Bitch knew that he’d be gone when they arrived. What no one knew for sure was where he was going to go.

  The first police units to arrive at the apartment building sealed off all the exits, posing ominously with their weapons supported by the hoods of the vehicles, using the steel fenders and engine blocks as cover. Later, neighbors would joke about the fear in the eyes of these officers as they faced down a little boy who’d already left.

  With the exits controlled, they could buy the time they needed to await the Pitcairn County SWAT team, which arrived one at a time, each in his own vehicle. Deputy Steadman was one of the last team members on the scene, having started his response from way out on the Hartford Road side of town. The instant his vehicle came to a stop, Steadman’s door swung open and he dashed around to the trunk. Trained as the team’s lead sniper, he assessed the current situation and decided that his M16 carbine was more appropriate to the task at hand than his Remington sniper rifle. He snatched the weapon with one hand and his utility vest with the other, slammed the trunk lid closed, and trotted off to the command post.

  The SWAT leader made the decision to go in fast and strong, crashing the door and taking the kid without negotiation. The leader reminded his troops that their prey had a proven history of killing cops and that he was an accomplished marksman with a pistol. He told them to take no unreasonable chances. If the kid showed aggression, they were to take him out.

  The seven-member team charged straight up the front stairs, one man covering
the rest as they leapfrogged from one landing to the next. Once on the sixth floor, they moved swiftly and silently to Apartment 612. Tommy Coyle kicked the door and went in low to the left while Gale Purvis went in high to the right to neutralize any traps that might have been laid for them. After a two-count, the rest of the team poured into the apartment, weapons to their shoulders and ready to shoot.

  “Police Department! Don’t. Move!”

  Straight ahead in the living room, a young black boy, maybe ten years old, lay stretched out on a sofa. As the cops streamed into the room, the boy sat up and smiled at them, surprisingly nonplussed by all the guns.

  “Hi, guys!” Billy said cheerily. “You’re on TV.”

  When there was no one around, Nathan ran full-tilt, as fast as his legs could pump; but when he thought he could be seen, he slowed to a fast walk, hoping to blend in. Twice that he knew of, he’d been recognized. You could see it in their eyes.

  In the first case, an older woman looked confused after she made eye contact, like she was trying to place him with a family she might know. The second time, though, there was definite recognition. A young mother with two little children first showed curiosity and then fear as she placed his face, and she hurried into a store. Crowds be damned, Nathan decided to run after that; to get to another block, at least.

  Each time he checked over his shoulder, there was no sign of his pursuer. Nathan told himself that he’d lost the guy, but he knew better.

  Everything had changed. He wasn’t avoiding capture anymore. He no longer cared why Ricky had done what he had. That was all irrelevant now. All that mattered was that the police were trying to kill him. They knew he had killed Ricky, they thought that he’d killed those other cops, and now they were going to kill him.

  Even Nathan’s purpose for running had changed. Staying free had taken a back seat to staying alive. Here he was, seeking out a cop who said he was trustworthy, just so that the cop could take him back to where it all started in the first place. And once he was back at the JDC—if that’s where they were sending him—that Petrelli asshole and others just like him would go right to work getting the state to take care of what the crazy cop with the gun thus far hadn’t been able to do! It was a ridiculous world people had built. Just to keep going, Nathan forced himself to believe that one day he’d be able to change it somehow.

  As he ran on, dodging people and ducking in and out of corners and alleyways, sweat poured off his body, soaking his tattered T-shirt, and lighting afire the pain in his ribs. When he thought it was safe to take a break, he ducked behind a Dumpster and sat down on an old milk crate.

  Breathing hard through his mouth, he dared his first look at his side, where blood had begun to soak through his shirt in spots. The bullet hole in his T-shirt was through-and-through, a kill shot for sure if the shirt had fit him properly. Nathan gently eased the shirt over his head and laid it across his lap. By slinging his right arm over his head, he could get a good look at his injury.

  It looked awful, a swollen purple mass about three inches below his armpit surrounding a gash in his flesh the width of a magic marker and the length of a birthday candle.

  “Oh, my God, I’ve been shot,” he said aloud, leaning against the Dumpster. The metal was hot against the bare flesh of his back.

  The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle now, but a wide, crimson road map down his side and into the waistband of his shorts was testament to a respectable wound. The tear in his flesh hurt no more than a bad scrape, but he still couldn’t bring himself to touch it. The real pain came from the area around the gash, which felt every bit as bruised as if he’d been kicked by something big.

  He thought vaguely that he should feel more than he did, that being shot should be a more frightening experience. Maybe on a different day or at a different time. Today, though, it was just one more jolt of pain resulting from one more attack by one more grown-up who didn’t understand anything.

  Knowing it was time to move on, Nathan stood and slipped the Bulls T-shirt back over his head. It was filthy, smeared with blood and snot and road grime, and torn in a dozen places, not even counting the bullet holes.

  Sorry, Tubbo, Nathan thought, remembering the huge closets and thick carpets of the Nicholsons’ house, you probably won’t want this back after all. The thought made him smile as he shoved his arms through the sleeves.

  “Hey, you!” a man yelled from the back door of a restaurant. Nathan reacted instantly, dashing out of the alley without even turning to see who was shouting.

  “Hey! You’re that kid! You’re Nathan Bailey! You get back here, boy!” The man, who was about fifty and had consumed way too much beer and pizza to entertain any serious notions about catching his quarry, nonetheless chased him as far as the sidewalk.

  “Stop him!” the man yelled to no one in particular. “Stop that boy! That’s Nathan Bailey, the kid that killed those cops!”

  Half a block away, Pointer heard the shouting and was drawn to it like a beetle drawn to a sex lure. He was close and he knew it, but until he saw the old cook pointing frantically down the street, he had no idea just how close he was.

  At about the same time that Sheriff Murphy received word from the SWAT team leader that the kid had left the Vista Plains Apartments, Nathan sightings began pouring into the Pitcairn County Emergency Operations Center faster than the call takers could keep up with them. Each sighting was sent out over the police net as an update, providing a reliable route of travel for the boy. Sheriff Murphy’s job was to plot the sightings on a map in the command van and try and figure out how to get ahead of him. Initially, he assumed that he was getting the sightings in the wrong order, figuring that the last place a kid would go would be back toward the center of the town where his crimes had been committed. Sure enough, though, that’s where he was headed.

  “What’s he trying to do?” Murphy wondered aloud, and finally the answer came to him. “Michaels, you son of a bitch!”

  All of the news agencies monitored police frequencies, and reporters all over town plotted the same map that Murphy made. News vans joined the fleet of cop cars as they tried to close in on the fleeing boy. Overhead, news choppers from Buffalo and Syracuse TV stations followed the action from the air, the reporters and cameramen concentrating on the ground while the pilots concentrated on avoiding a midair collision.

  The network affiliates had all been notified to stand by for a special report at any moment when the action got interesting. CNN was already showing live footage, even though there was nothing more to show than a lot of marauding police vehicles.

  In Washington, D. C., a tiny television had been brought into The Bitch’s studio at NewsTalk 990 so that Denise could track the events as they unraveled. She was prepared to give a play-by-play rundown to her audience regarding what was going down in Pitcairn County. During a commercial break, she told Enrique to air only those callers who were on the boy’s side.

  “We don’t need any more fuel on this fire,” she told him. Enrique assured her that the calls were running three-to-one in that direction anyway.

  Once he’d reacquired his prey, Pointer moved through the crowd like a torpedo racing toward its target. He walked swiftly without running, steadily closing the distance between Nathan and himself. They were about fifty yards apart now, separated by just enough people that he couldn’t take a clean shot.

  The kid moved smoothly, clearly wanting to avoid being recognized, and clearly unaware that Pointer was so close. The Hit Man had decided to play the takedown as an arrest rather than just popping him on the street. He’d cuff the kid and haul him into “custody?’ When they were alone, he’d do him where there were no witnesses.

  The kid was fast, though. He’d have to wait until he was nearly on top of him to make his move. Pointer figured about three minutes more.

  Then events took yet another unexpected turn.

  Chapter 38

  Nathan was getting close. He could see the obelisk in the distance now, rising
above the heads of his fellow pedestrians. He walked among them as though he belonged, avoiding eye contact, and receiving none in return.

  That guy behind the restaurant had unnerved him, shouting so loud. If the killer cop had been within a hundred yards, he would have heard that buttinsky shouting his name. Why couldn’t people just mind their own business?

  Someone grabbed Nathan from behind in a crushing bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him off his feet. “It’s all over now, kid! I gotcha!” All Nathan could see was a pair of beefy forearms across his chest. The pressure of the man’s grip drove Nathan’s elbow squarely into his bullet wound. The pressure and the pain made it impossible to take a whole breath.

  “Let go of me!” Nathan yelled. “Help! Get this guy off of me!” He kicked wildly and wriggled in every direction. As the man’s grip weakened, Nathan started to slip through his grasp. The man grunted and staggered back as a flailing heel found his kneecap. When Nathan drove the back of his head into the man’s nose, he let go completely and staggered backwards. Nathan landed on his feet and coiled into a half-crouch, preparing to defend himself against the next attacker.

  For a long moment, no one in the crowd moved as the realization hit them. Nathan heard his whispered name work its way through the crowd like The Wave at a baseball game.

  “I didn’t kill those people,” he declared in a voice so soft that only the four or five people closest to him could hear it. “People are trying to kill me. Please let me be.”

  The big man on the ground groaned loudly and cursed the boy. “Somebody grab him!” the man yelled.