I thought of the clock tower near Liberty Square as the perfect spot for me to watch her. It had a great view of the east side of the mall where there was another café that I knew would be open.
‘What about meeting at the Blue Note at ten?’ I said. ‘Hello?’ I said, puzzled, when she didn’t respond. The line must have dropped out. She was gone. I looked for her number to call back when the screeching of tyres made me jump.
A black Subaru had screamed to a halt, mounting the footpath only metres behind me! Red Singlet was already halfway out of the driver’s seat!
And was there another person in the back seat? Someone with dark, floaty hair who’d just set me up?!
I turned and ran. I had to ignore the pain in my leg and I hared across the road, ducking stray cars, zigzagging to the other side, ignoring the blasts of horns and the curses of shocked and angry drivers. From the corner of my eye I could see Red Singlet coming after me. He was fast. He was ducking and weaving the same trail as I had.
I put my head down and raced down the footpath, knocking people out of my way, crashing around corners.
And he kept up right behind me.
I was almost at the train station. I raced to get there, hoping that I could lose him amongst the late-night commuters and party-goers, going up and down the ramp to the dozens of platforms.
But a quick sideways twist of my head showed me that I was far from losing him. Red Singlet was making ground on me. He was closing the gap and he knew it. Now I could even see his evil grin as he strained to catch me. I’m right here behind you, he seemed to be saying. You’re dead!
I forced my injured leg to keep working, racing along at a singeing pace. I knew only too well what would become of me if I were caught. Torture. Death. I had to outrun him.
I jumped and scrambled over the ticket barriers. I turned around to see if I was still being followed. I could see a railway attendant talking into his two-way and had no doubt he was reporting me. I kept running, my breathing coming hard, and the ache in my bad leg weakening me even further. But I couldn’t stop now.
I ran down onto the first-level platform hoping to jump on a train and free myself of my pursuer, but the train was pulling out too fast already.
More stairs led to lower platforms. I had no choice but to keep descending.
Red Singlet thundered behind me. In a panic I made a bad move and jumped from about halfway down the stairs. I felt the stitches burst as soon as I landed.
I howled and stumbled with pain, my wound splitting open again, but somehow I kept going.
My backpack bumped hard and heavy on my shoulders as I hit more stairs. I wanted to throw it off me, but I couldn’t. Everything important to me was in there.
Including a box of tranquillising syringes!
Still racing towards the trains going to who knows where, I kept going, reaching my hand back, feeling around for the pocket in the side of my backpack where I’d hurriedly stashed the syringes back at the zoo. My fingers closed around one of them and I pulled it out, checking it as I ran. The loaded syringe, with its cone-shaped lid over the sharp end, was enclosed in a sterile plastic sleeve. I tore it open with my teeth as I ran.
Tiring now, the blood starting to rush free from my leg, I was slowing down.
I saw him come flying down the flight of stairs to the platform I was running along. Now he was at the bottom of the steps and still coming after me. Only a handful of people stood around, waiting, not particularly disturbed by a kid running for his life past them. A couple of women clutched their bags closer.
A dark tunnel yawned ahead of me.
I headed into it.
My breath was coming in shorter, harder gulps. I was almost at the end of my strength.
I turned to see where Red Singlet was.
I gasped in fright—he was almost on top of me! I could hear his panting, see the fury on his face, the rage in his narrowed eyes. He was going to make me pay for this chase. He could almost reach me. And my plan required that he did. I wasn’t even sure that it would work, or how long before the tranquilliser would take effect.
I headed deeper into the gaping darkness of the tunnel, running along a siding that tapered ahead, narrowing until the platform finished at the tracks.
I had no choice—I jumped down and headed off into the tunnel, running as hard as I could along the tracks, where dim blue lights along the wall lit my way, and past the dark recesses of the human-sized safety alcoves at intervals along the tunnel.
I heard him jump down behind me with a grunt. And at that sound, I pulled off the lid of the syringe, and pretended to stumble on the tracks.
He roared with triumph and reared up, preparing to pounce on top of me.
I rolled over and held the syringe firmly pointed straight up but hidden out of sight.
He fell on me, grabbing me with his powerful hands, and I lunged upwards with the needle, jabbing him in the neck. I depressed the plunger before he had time to even realise what was happening.
He shrieked in pain and shock. Then loomed above me again, both his hands clenched making a powerful martial arts-style weapon of his fists. He brought them down towards me and I barely had the strength to move out of his way.
His fists hit the edge of the left-hand rail first, and then his body followed, rolling over the track, the needle sticking out of his neck. I saw his eyes on me and the puzzled expression in them as he tried to get up, and fell back. He blinked, opened and closed his mouth, as if to speak. But no sound came out.
Then he crashed completely, his body flopped out like a rag doll, his eyes rolled up into his head, and then he was perfectly still.
‘Sleep tight,’ I whispered.
I fell under a dim blue glow on the tunnel wall, my chest heaving. Every muscle ached and throbbed and I could feel blood dripping from the gash in the back of my leg. Some people back on the platform had started yelling and I knew it wouldn’t be long before security turned up. They’d find Red Singlet lying on the tracks inside the tunnel. They mustn’t find me anywhere near him.
I began picking my way along the tracks, scrambling over junction boxes and safety boxes running alongside the sleepers, when the rumblings of a train in another tunnel seemed to get louder.
At first I felt a cool breeze, and then there was a distinct rush of air coming towards me. The sound I could hear wasn’t coming from a nearby tunnel—it was on this line. And it was speeding its way towards me!
Before running for the closest safety alcove, I stopped to look behind me at the lifeless shape of Red Singlet lying unconscious on the tracks. I hesitated, almost ignoring the urge to go back and move him, but couldn’t … I just couldn’t leave him in the path of an oncoming train.
The sound was almost unbearable as I hobbled back to Red Singlet’s side. With all of my strength I pushed my hands underneath him, but as I began to heave his bulky body off the tracks the blue lights suddenly disappeared. Blackness fell heavily on my eyes and I panicked in the sudden darkness, and stumbled. Pain soared up my bad leg. The blue lights flickered and I saw that Red Singlet’s body had rolled and tumbled off the tracks, but my blood-soaked foot had slipped between a sleeper and a safety box onto a metallic mesh ground … and become firmly wedged.
My foot was completely stuck.
The roar of the train was getting louder. I could now see its blazing lights in the distance behind me. Sweat rushed down my face as I desperately tried to free myself.
The sudden whoomp of pressured air hit my back as the train approached. Even more desperately, I tried to free myself, twisting this way then that, trying to wrench my foot out, trying to crawl off the tracks.
The train was bearing down on me. I could even see the cabin now, above the light. The driver had spotted me!
He’d applied the brakes and the train was screaming as he attempted to pull it up.
Would I lose my leg? Or my life?
I screamed but my voice was swallowed up by the terrible sound of the tr
ain’s approaching wheels sparking against the brakes. Blazing lights blinded me; I was deafened by the screeching and the blaring horns echoing throughout the tunnel as the train thundered towards me. Frenzied, I struggled to free my trapped ankle! Straining every muscle of my body, I screamed for help!
It would never pull up in time and I’d be creamed, minced on the tracks! I gave a last desperate heave, trying to escape. But my foot, trapped in the boot I’d taken from the zoo, wouldn’t budge.
In slow motion, I watched the train come closer, my body frozen in horror. Time seemed to stop.
Copyright
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Text copyright © Gabrielle Lord, 2010.
Illustrations copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2010.
Illustrations by Rebecca Young.
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Cover design by Natalie Winter.
Cover photography: male figure by Michael Bagnall © ScholasticAustralia; helicopter © Elnur/Shutterstock; fence © HitoshiNishimura/Taxi Japan/Getty Images; train © Digital Vision/Getty Images; female figure © istockphoto.com/Tyler Stalman.
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited in 2012.
E-PUB/MOBI eISBN 978 192198 839 4
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