by Ryan Sayles
He buckles. Rolls with it. His scalp smacks off the concrete and instantly he makes a scratching play for the gun. The secretary screams. Just stands there, her mind weathered down to a few fragile nuggets, and screams. Grabs her hair and flexes her whole body to belt out those shrill notes.
We’re not alone on this street. Other people notice. Folks begin to crowd the front window of the gym across the street. A few women with shopping bags pause down the sidewalk. Pull out a cell phone. And I’ll be damned; one ballsy motherfucker comes trotting over, still in his spandex weight-lifting suit. Right over to us. The rapist, even if he is forty with crow’s feet digging in around his eyes, he looks respectable in decent khakis and a button-down shirt. He’s here with the secretary. So close they could have been arm-in-arm.
And then me, chewed up from fighting dudes and getting shot at all my life, a grizzly older man with a neck tattoo and a hefty five o’clock shadow. Mr. Spandex starts shouting in his best drill sergeant command voice: “Drop the gun! Cops are on their way! Stop it! ROBBERY!”
And then, since I’m still fighting the rapist to keep him from the gun when maybe I should just slug him and back up, I draw my iron, and Mr. Spandex jumps in.
To help the rapist.
Mr. Spandex gets his steroid-assisted mitts on me, tries to wrap an arm under me and around my chest in some bullshit shoulder-pin thing and I’m struggling with the rapist over a fucking gun.
“This guy is a rapist!” I shout.
“No, I’m not! Help me!” the rapist shouts back, doing his best nightingale impersonation. Mr. Spandex buys it, keeps a hold on me.
Fine. The ayes have it, then.
I gather a wad of spit and launch it right at the rapist’s face. Hit him in the left eye. All gooey and yellow from a Rum Coast cigarette. He flinches, wigs out. I chop at his throat and he rolls. I shove the gun off and away from us, turn to Mr. Spandex. He’s gritting his teeth and trying to squeeze me like we were competing in some homoerotic underground fighting ring. I throw an elbow like I’m trying to drive a nail into brick and get enough of his nose to work some magic. He jumps to his feet, runs across the street and nearly gets creamed by some teenage broad worried about texting as opposed to driving.
I spin around. The rapist has the gun. Aims it. The sun glints off it now for the second time.
The secretary just keeps screaming, today’s events no doubt charging several years in the future to her psychologist’s bill. I drill a right cross and land it on the rapist’s cheek and for the first time in a long time I see the eyes of a man who thought one thing but learned another.
He thought he was running this show and I just put a crimp in it. Big time.
The rapist shoves the secretary towards me and fires a round. I’m not hit and maybe she is, maybe she’s not. Mr. Spandex is across the street crying like a bitch, coddling his nose. Done with the one fight he’ll be in for his entire life. The secretary’s heel snaps off and I don’t look back. She collapses, might be dead. But she’s free of the man I’m trying to beat to a pulp and I start doing the one thing in police work I truly hate: foot chase.
Charging towards the shoreline, crowds get in the way.
Not five hundred feet from where we started, and my sixty-year-old smoker’s lungs are about done with this. The rapist isn’t a runner, but he is a survivor. I’m not a runner, but I am a hunter.
We hit people. Thick crowd. Some kind of sidewalk art fair. He tumbles through; I plow. The smell of human cattle hits my nostrils, all sweat and nervous energy. Elbows and shoulders get in the way, like I need a machete to cut through the over-growth. Start pushing, needing deep but unsatisfying breaths for my burning lungs.
The rapist shoots glances back at me every few seconds because he knows what’s going to happen when I get my hands on him. I knock over a display and a canvas clatters off into the street. “Hey!” Some dweeb in a beret and a plaid shirt buttoned up to his Adam’s apple shouts and jumps off a high-legged chair. “My art!”
The rapist comes to a grinding halt in the middle of the crowd. Spins to face me. We make eye contact and I smile. Taste the blood in the water. Then he juts his arm in the air, ready to make these human cattle stampede.
His gun fires a shot off to the heavens, and the crowd goes batshit crazy like ants after a kid stomps their mound.
Screams, scattering, panicked chaos.
He sets off at a dead sprint and I give what I have to follow. Art fair folks dodge into shop fronts and behind cars. Strollers with sleeping babies zoom past with harried moms shoving them along.
The rapist grabs an old woman and throws her to the ground. If he’s trying to put something in my path his aim is way off. But then he grabs another woman and throws her. Then a young man. Adds in a trashcan for color, then another man.
I kick the trashcan and jump over one of the dudes. The rapist runs around a corner. I take it wide in case he’s going to jump me. Nope. It leads down a short alleyway, and there he is, knocking over more debris. A stack of empty cardboard boxes, more trash cans. He clears the other end and I bull rush through the obstacles.
He wanted the meet so he could taunt and then shoot me. He never dreamed of this. It says something about a man who runs and hurts people along the way rather than go toe-to-toe. You’ve got to be careful with that type. Cowards, but when things don’t go their way they take cheap shots.
I see him go over a hill with the bay behind him. He’s making for a brand new subdivision. It’s all vertical townhouses done in tight rows. Adorned with banners, balloons galore and a big sign which reads: TODAY! OPEN HOUSE!
He darts in the first house, the one with the open and inviting front door.
I hear gasps and shouts as I enter. There is a guided tour going on with a real estate agent in the front. The rapist shoves through a group of them and shoots a glance over his shoulder. I’m in; our eyes meet. He takes off. ALL BAMBOO FLOORS! rushes past me in a blur set to concerned shouts. ENERGY EFFICENT! TRIPLE-PANED WINDOWS! SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD! TWO BLOCKS FROM THE BEACH!
Up the stairs, knocking over an easel with some pie chart display on it. I get to the top and the people there are cautious, nervous, stealing glances, no doubt in disbelief over this. Us, bursting through their wet dream of a new luxury home. Soiled it with the gleaned knowledge that once I get my hands on him I’m going to beat him to death.
Hallway runs both ways. Window in front of me, rooms on both sides. Second flight of stairs beside me, running to floor number three. These homes are too narrow to have much square footage on a single level. They’re stacked. Hipster-style. My lungs want an elevator.
Where to? Not up. I would have heard it. Hold my breath. Tune out my heart. The gaggle of people down below has raised their nervous chatter to a cacophony. I need the rapist to give me a sound. I dart to the left, throw open a door. Clear the room in three seconds and out. Next door. Nothing. That’s it for this end. Past the stairs, next door is the shitter, spacious, marbled, gaudy gold trim and fixtures. Lifted right out of Saddam Hussein’s palace.
Maybe he waited until I ducked in a room, ran past me down the hall. I jump into the hallway, listen for feet up the stairs. Can’t tell. At the stairs I look up. Hear down below, “I can’t believe this! The nerve—” “way to screw up the day—” “probably a drug quarrel or they’re boyfriends and one of ’em—” “I called the fucking the cops, they never show up when—” “if these are the neighbors—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I bellow, rattle windows.
Gasps down below. Sweet silence; the living room is now a bone yard. Then—
Up the stairs. A sudden crash. I might be old, but I know the sound of a hip hitting furniture. He’s on the third floor. Two at a time then, the all bamboo flooring passes under my determined feet.
Third floor, movement to the right. I take cover behind some obnoxious balustrade that extends halfway to the ceiling and probably needs its own support beam. I check around it and aim my heater. Noth
ing. Nothing—
Sounds from outside. Up here? Not floating up from below. The AC is on; vent is right next to me, coughing ice up my pant leg. Down the hall, a real estate banner flutters. Breeze.
Open window.
Escape.
I go, muzzle leading the way. Too fast to give him any reaction time. Swoop into a bedroom. The room itself takes a sharp gasp I run in it so determined. Picture window, open. His feet on the sill, his ass ducking under the limits of the sliding glass. Hands outside, grabbing the house’s frame. He turns his head just enough to see me and pushes off.
Third story window, gone.
I get to it, see how the roof slopes out under the window to brace the rapist’s fall.
He’s sliding down into a corner made by two peaks, looks back and smirks. I aim my gun just as he goes over. I holster and shove through the window. Move fast enough along the slope to lose my footing. Fall on my side, skid down too fast. Scramble. Kick a foot up into this corner and kick the other foot up into that, claw the shingles. I stop, crabwalk down. Get to the corner and peer over, see the rapist.
He’s clubbing a man over the head, carjacking his truck. I can see the brake lights on, idling in the driveway of the open house. The rapist jumps in, and I leap off the roof.
I’m floating above the truck bed as the truck roars to life, taking my flatbed landing site with it.
I catch the tailgate of the truck across my gut and I just know I’m going to shit blood over this.
The rapist is mashing the gas pedal and the truck rockets off, fishtailing out onto the road. He heads east. I give the best heave I’ve got and flop into the bed, roll over. Draw my iron. I go to get my balance and the rapist is watching me in the rearview mirror, hands clamped on the steering wheel like he’s dangling from a cliff with only that wheel to keep him safe.
Sees the gun. Yanks the wheel. I hit against a sidewall, fight to not get thrown out. Gun moves. Yanks again. I drop to my knees, one hand holding the bed, the other swings up to the back of the truck bench.
He drives the vehicle right up and over a curb and right under the low hanging branch of a mighty oak. The force of the branch scraping along the truck’s roof squeals with angry metal losing its paint job. Branches to my face, the vivid scent of fresh leaves being torn. I duck; thrust the gun forward and just squeeze off a round.
The truck yanks again, hard. I roll, hit the sidewall. Gun comes out of my hand. I scramble for it, but those floating eyes in the rearview mirror see me. Slam on the breaks. I thrust forward, make eye contact.
I’ll regret it later but I punch through the sliding glass window, reach for him. He guns the engine. I grab a fistful of hair before I fall back. The hair gives before his skull does.
I rock back; hit my head on my own gun. Cut. Bleeding some. Shake the clinging hair from my fingers, grab the weapon. See those eyes. See ahead of us, how those eyes are so fixated on me they don’t see where the road up ahead makes a ninety-degree turn. He jumps the curb where the road doesn’t go, hits sand.
Those townhomes were two blocks from the beach. Hard to believe we’re only two blocks away from where this started.
The truck yaws, goes up on two wheels. I know what’s coming; don’t want any part of it. The sand has gnawed at the speed, and I dive like an Olympic swimmer right off the ass end of this thing. Hit hard. No breath. Roll with it, roll with it. Settle out.
Sand in my eyes, my nose, my mouth. Cough, look up. Truck flops sideways and stops sliding on the beach. The high tide reaches out and licks me wet. My gun ten feet in front of me. I try to get to my feet and it hurts. I go anyways. Feel the constrictor around my chest, not letting me breathe. I do it slowly, shoot a glance at my right fist as I make it over to the truck. Red. Punching the back windshield opened me up. Maybe broke my middle finger. I come around the truck.
Empty.
Footprints in the sand. Small but steady trickle of hot red around them. Across the street, I see his shirt disappear under an overpass.
Right into traffic.
Four busy lanes already zigzagged and jack knifed. Honking. Hear someone’s grill smash someone’s bumper. Across from me, the rapist. Back turned, running towards a gym. I check to make sure I’m not going to get blitzed by a soccer mom hurrying to the next karate lesson. I go through the traffic mess as fleet-footed as a laboring man like me can.
The rapist goes into the gym. I’m about fifty feet behind.
The blast of air conditioning hits; startles my skin into shock.
The front desk is staring. Some blonde gal, big tits and tight shirt, some dude, his pretty muscles spilling out of his polo. Perfect hair all around.
“Where did he go?”
The blonde stares absently like I just asked her what two plus two equals. The dude’s brain puzzles out what I am talking about, says, “The other guy?”
“No, you fucking meathead, Amelia Earhart,” I say, looking both directions. “Yes! The other sweaty, beat-up dude who busted through these doors ten seconds ago!”
The blonde points to my left. I go. Over my shoulder I say, “Call the cops. Say the guy from the murder/arson is here!”
I go past a wall of windows. Weights, cardio. A pool to my left. An aerobics studio where, by all appearances, a female instructor has just finished a class. She has a sheen of sweat, fiddling with the sound system.
A startled shout from up ahead. I go. Two other aerobics women look shocked. Mumbles, “What an asshole—” and then I show up.
“Where’s the asshole?”
The mumbler motions to the door beside her. Labeled WOMENS LOCKER ROOM. I hear one more muffled shout inside. I nod. “Makes sense, I guess.”
Look at the women; see how their eyes light up with that oh shit face when my iron appears from my suit coat. I’m sure this is the most real thing which has ever happened in their tennis club lives. “Go to the front. Cops are coming. Direct them back here.”
Push open the door, gun drawn.
Eight stalls with their doors shut and a massive running shower room.
This is a Revenge of the Nerds wet dream. The locker room door opens to a small anteroom, and that opens to the rows of shitters and four sinks. That opens to the showers. I imagine beyond them are lockers.
But all eight stall doors shut? And I smell something. Not sweat, not chlorine. Not the musty humidity of running hot water. Grime. Gutter hooch and grime.
Duck down, look for feet. One set of obvious woman’s feet and the far end, left side. Labored heart beat thudding in my temples. Try to control my ragged breathing. Burned the inside of my throat. Sandpaper inhales, acid exhales. Sweat has had time to react to the sixty-eight-degree temperature inside here. Clothes wet, torn. Can feel the way my socks are soaked and bunched between my toes. Eyes sting with runoff from my forehead. This isn’t how I want to clear a room.
In through the nose, feel the weight of the air as it settles at the very bottom of my lungs. Burns. Out through my pursed lips, cracked and tired from snarling.
He is in here. In one of these shitters. The athletic, nude women in the shower room wouldn’t be still scrubbing their exhausted, tight little bodies if that skeezy pervert ran through. It figures that I get this fantasy in real life and there’s someone I have to kill to distract me from it.
Gun aimed midpoint on the first door on the left, I try it. Swings in, nothing. The one on the right, empty. Next one on the left, empty. Next one on the right? Locked. There were no feet below the door when I checked.
Giddy as a schoolgirl. Trigger finger excited, mind’s eye squeezed down to a tight reticle, air going in and out in harmony with the river of death I wade out into, thoughts clear now. This is it.
My back pressed to the stall behind me, I knock on the locked one. No answer. “Hello? Hola? Housekeeping. Servicio de limpieza.” Nothing. “Any rapists hiding in there?”
No answer.
“Okay. I’ll try the next one—” And he bursts out of the one where the wo
man’s feet were, his gun firing. I dart down, draw a bead. No go. Locked stall, a decoy. I dive into the next one up. Drop for a split second. See his feet scramble. No plan beyond jumping out and shooting. No doubt, he’s all out of lead now. I come out, bull rush. The stall with the woman’s feet whisks by in an instant, an unconscious woman plopped down on the stool with her eyes closed, head against the wall. He tries to run.
“You zigged when you should have zagged, motherfucker.” And in an instant, I have my mitts on him. Awesome.
We go down in a crumple. I drop a haymaker and lay open his nose in one gush of crimson. He scrambles like a turtle on its back with one miracle foothold. Shoves out, clawing for purchase on the tile. I lunge, get him. Slide just enough to feel wet. Shower room. Athletic, nude women, scrubbing their exhausted, tight little bodies until that shot rang out. He and I land at their feet. Their wet and naked feet.
Double awesome.
“Don’t mind us, ladies,” I say, smirking as I grab his throat. “Please, keep cleaning yourselves.”
They scream, cram into one creamy bunch in a corner. Rapist is bleeding everywhere, gouging at my face. I draw back, slug him again. His jaw pops under my fist and his eyes turn bright red. He kicks, grazes my balls. Goes for my gun in the holster. One hand to guard it. I twist. He twists opposite; gets both legs free. I take the finger on my gun, yank hard enough to feel it give under my tension. He screams. Kicks again. My hand chops at his throat. Not a good one. Thumb to his eye. A little better. We’re getting fucking soaked. He spasms, kicks and wiggles. Gets my knee. I slip off. His hand comes free, tries to bolt for it. I grab an ankle, yank. He tumbles forward, hits the showerhead tower. Knocks a bunch of soap and shampoo to the floor. Whishing around in the water, I pull on his ankle, get to my knees. Throw a punch. Lands poorly. He rakes at my face with a safety razor. I get a glimpse of a bunch of armpit whiskers stuck between the blades at it comes by my face. I thrust up at his jaw with my palm. The thing is already swollen twice its size and my strike makes him yelp like a puppy getting neutered awake.