by Gary Denne
Sean was bruised and hurting. Blood dripped from his mouth onto the subway floor. He fell to the ground on his knees, as the sound of an approaching train on its way down the tunnel could be heard.
He was beat. This was the end.
He only wanted to get it over with quickly and free himself of the pain. Roberts grunted above him in disappointment. It was as though he was suddenly deprived of further pleasure now that his victim no longer wanted to put up a fight. He would’ve enjoyed spending more time pummeling this boy into a bloody mess, making him feel the pain of his fists, but the little shit had given up. The hunt was over. Roberts slowly reached into his trench coat and pulled out his shotgun. Oh Lord above, this was going to be messy.
Sean dragged himself up off his knees. As the barrel of Robert’s shotgun reached his head, Sean instinctively lifted his hands up in one last effort to fight, grabbing at it. The gun went off, firing into the station ceiling. Pieces of hardened plaster sprayed onto the ground next to them both. They struggled with each other, trying to win possession of the weapon. Roberts gleefully fought Sean, feeling a rush flow through his body once more. He angrily lowered the barrel towards Sean’s torso, overpowering his target’s resistance. The next train screamed out of the tunnel, and at the same time, Sean let out a howling groan, pushing as hard as he could, like a mother delivering her first-born. Like the hand of a clock, the barrel ticked over towards the old man, facing him. And then it went off.
Boom!
The shotgun blast went right into Robert’s chest. The energy from the shot knocked the old man at least five feet back onto the floor, just as the subway train came to a halt. Sean stood there stunned for a second, his arms shaking from the force of the blast. The old man didn’t move. Blood slowly began to drain out of Robert’s body in a growing pool. Horrified commuters looked on as they departed and boarded the train, many of their troubled faces indicating they were well aware a game was in play at the very end of the platform.
Sean stepped towards the old man’s body, clutching at his own leg as he walked. He was extremely careful, but simply seeing the pool of blood trickling out over the unevenness of the subway floor gave him a sense that this guy wasn’t getting up anytime soon. He crouched down next to Roberts and lifted open his trench coat. He quickly rummaged through the pockets. He lifted out strange syringes of colored liquid, a Quartz tablet, a hip flask, and other various items, placing them down on the station floor. Then he saw it; the bone-handle knife on Robert’s leg. He grabbed at it and pulled it from the leather sheath, crudely beginning to cut a piece of material from Roberts’ pants. He quickly wrapped the cut piece around his wounded leg, wincing as he pulled tight and tied a knot. He spotted a revolver on the old man’s waist and grabbed that too, placing it in his pants, underneath his bloodstained shirt. He was a mess.
The train at the platform closed its doors and took off, leaving commuters arriving at their subway stop shocked to suddenly see a body lying on the platform, bled out. One or two of the more concerned residents stopped in their tracks and watched Sean for a moment, either incredibly brave or completely insane. From a distance they saw the pool of blood around the body, but didn’t shout for a doctor or call for help. They seemed aware that it was a game, however they looked puzzled, perhaps speculating which each other on what may have happened at the end of the platform.
Sean looked up. A crowd was gathering at the other end of the station, building up their curiosity. They looked right at him. There was mumbling. None of them knew what to make of him. The hunter or the hunted?
Summoning strength, Sean got up off the subway floor and began to walk towards them. Tied off, his leg seemed stable and he dealt with the sharp pain as best he could. As he reached the crowd of onlookers, he didn’t say anything. Nor did anyone speak to him. People simply stood and stared back at him, hobbling along, headed towards the stairs. Even the beat of the plastic buckets had stopped with the curiosity of the drummer now looking on. Ambient noise was kept to a bare minimum during Sean’s long walk out the station. Halfway, he stopped to catch his breath. He briefly looked around at people staring at him in silence. Some then glanced at the old man’s body, dead on the floor. They wondered what had taken place. They simply did not know what to do.
Neither did Sean.
But he did happen to notice the well-protected security cameras watching on from several strategic vantage points in the station.
Shit. He had to get out of there.
Sean continued on, towards the subway steps up to the street. People watched him hobble away and begin to climb the stairs. They slowly began to get back to their lives, unsure of themselves and the moment. Over the crusty wall speakers of the subway station, a looping pre-recorded announcement suddenly snapped the commuters out of their daze and disbelief...
“This is a MADDSEC special announcement. MADDSEC personnel are imminent to your location. All commuters please remain in the station. All subway services are currently suspended. This is a MADDSEC special announcement. MADDSEC personnel are imminent to your location…”
Storm from Above
The thunderstorm was building in strength and almost ready to unleash its force on the city. The pavement began to dampen with the first few blobs of rain before the downpour. Horses could sense the weather above as they trotted restlessly along the streets, pulling carriages of weatherly residents to their engagements. Pedestrians looked to the skies with each crack of thunder above them. Strong gushes of wind flowed down the long corridors of the city streets at great speed. It was about to become one hell of a storm.
Sean’s leg was killing him. He could feel the lodged bullet tearing at his flesh with each step he took, wincing as he reacted to the sharp pain. Blood had now soaked right through his pants, drawing stares from onlookers passing him on the sidewalk. No one offered any assistance, naturally. They simply stared at the most unusual of sights.
Slowly, he dragged himself along 42nd Street, heading for Bryant Park. He knew very well one of the MADDSEC strike teams would soon be coming after him. It wouldn’t be long at all before they inspected the old man lying in a pool of blood on the station floor, talked to eyewitnesses, and got their description of the perp. They were probably already beginning to swarm the city-block radius. Crawling along the sidewalk like some kind of B-horror movie monster, Sean wondered how long it would take them to catch up. He also wondered just how long he could keep going.
Reaching the corner of Sixth Avenue, he leaned up against the edge of a towering office building to stop and catch his breath. For a few brief moments he looked out to the streets, pondering his fate. The city was still. The wind had slowed and the skies stopped rumbling. Time seemed to slow right down as he slowly breathed in and out, or maybe it was just the high level of pain he was having to endure that made each second feel like ten.
And then suddenly came the rain. A heavy downpour dropped from the sky. Crowds of people darted and weaved for any cover they could find away from the exposed sidewalks. It was only water falling from the sky, albeit filled with toxins and impurities from decades of heavy-industry pollution, yet it was always human nature that made life so interesting. A few souls—mostly identifiable as entrants—chose to stay out in the rain, getting soaked right through, which judging by their faces, seemed to be most liberating of feelings. The kind of feeling that they were once again truly living with nature, even if it was on an island of mostly concrete and steel. But other residents on the sidewalks of the city avoided the rain like it was death itself. For a resident, heaven forbid if more than a few drops touched their skin or soiled their tailored clothing.
Watching the rain fall in a constant barrage, Sean’s pain eased a little as he held his hand over the wound, trying to pull up the bleeding. As if on cue, in response to the rain that was coming down, he noticed some of the city’s entrepreneurs had seemingly come out of nowhere and were now offering homemade umbrellas to those residents without. Yes indeed, the entrepren
eurial spirit was still alive and well, long after the economic collapse of the country. God bless America.
As the rain continued to fall on the city, Sean looked up from a shallow breath. He spotted a park bench across the street, at the fringe of Bryant Park, a beautiful park of marble benches, life-size chessboards, and an abundance of nature for all to enjoy. That was going to be his next checkpoint.
The pain got louder in his leg as he waited for a break in the light traffic of reconditioned, vegetable-oil running automobiles, and the ubiquitous horse and carriage; the speed of transportation much slower due to the conditions. As fast as he could possibly move now, he knew he had to sit down, and that the park bench had his name plastered all over it. He felt around to his back and checked ... yes, he could still feel the gun tucked into his pants. But a weapon wasn’t going to save him now. His heart rate had dropped from the dizzying heights of the fight with the old man, and he knew that it wasn’t a good sign. He looked scared now. Like he was going to fall in a heap, down to the sidewalk like countless a drunken patron in any quarter of the Underworld. Never in a million years would he have imagined a moment in his life such as this; his final moments spent resting on a park bench as he bled to death from a gunshot wound inflicted by a senior citizen cowboy in a New York subway. This, on the very same day he arrived into Manhattan as a lottery winner. Life certainly did have a strange way of working out…
Crossroads
The near twenty-knot winds pushed rain across the street in huge sheets, making homemade umbrellas and building overhangs useless in providing shelter. Loud claps of thunder exploded overhead, scaring the living daylights out of those directly below, who began to realize that this was no ordinary storm. As man’s impact on the planet deepened throughout the decades since the industrial revolution, so too had the planet reacted in displaying ever more angry weather patterns. The phrase of the early 21st century, ‘Climate Change’, was no longer thrown around on a daily basis. No. Everyone had now long accepted that the climate changed. And all living souls on the planet were now forced to deal with the consequences of man’s pollution and abuse to Mother Earth. Much like man had once become accustomed to dealing with terrorism from Middle East extremists, now he had to deal with Mother Nature as a different kind of terrorist. Over the years, weather of varying kinds had wiped out city infrastructure all over the globe, and coupled with the economic collapse, many cities simply never recovered. People migrated to other lands, buildings crumbled, towns were deserted, and that was the way it was. The cold, hard reality for many governments around the globe was when they ran out of money, they literally ran out of money. Bailouts, loans, financial packages, austerity measures ... all long gone as ideals that were simply unsustainable. While the Manhattan Seawall created much controversy in its time, it was now considered one of the wisest projects the city had ever undertaken, far surpassing grand old infrastructure like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel. But, the city was not immune to weather from above...
As the heavens opened up and torrential rain pounded down in an organic anger towards the city, horse-drawn carriages pulled over to the sidewalks, their drivers trying to comfort horses as they became increasingly scared and restless. What few automobiles were on the road also pulled over, the rain so heavy that they could not see where they were going on the old, beaten up, and mostly unmaintained roads. This was a burst of Mother Nature that was best to wait out.
Almost foolhardy, Sean tried to battle against the storm, having only made it a few steps further towards the park bench in the powerful winds. But that bench was his only goal now. To make it to that damn bench, sit back, close his eyes, and rest. Shielded just enough from the wind and rain by the buildings around him to be able to keep upright, he fixed his eyes on the park bench, determined to reach it through the extreme conditions.
But it was no good. He had to stop. His leg was killing him and he could barely stand, let alone walk. Leaning himself up against an office skyscraper, he looked over to Bryant Park, through the teeming rain. He felt helpless. So close, yet so far away from that damn park bench. He did not want to die on a grungy city street of concrete and steel. He wanted to die surrounded by nature. But he could not go on. There was no strength left to argue with his body’s desire to start shutting down. Seeming consigned to his fate, he looked around, trying to distract himself from the pain shooting up his leg and into his lower back. The sound of the rain was overpowering almost everything else, which even in this much quieter version of Manhattan, was quite a feat. Every few seconds, the wind blew sheets of rain his way, soaking him to the bone. With his back to the wall of the dull-grey generic office tower, he slid down to the pavement, coming to rest with his legs outstretched like a long-forgotten homeless man. He put his head back on the smooth concrete wall and slowly closed his eyes. It felt good to rest. It felt good to just sit back and breathe, even if it meant it would be his final resting place. The old man—the crazed cowboy—had finally claimed him. But he was happy now. It was okay. He didn’t want to be part of this city anymore. Looking up to the heavens as the rain drenched his bruised and battered face, Sean slowly smiled.
This is Bliss
As the motorbike tore down 42nd Street, heavy spray shot out from the back tire at such force it could well have doubled as a mobile city fountain. Seemingly ignoring the wet-weather conditions, the rider throttled the bike like a bat out of hell and sped down the near-empty road as fast as lightning.
Through the rain, Violet could only just make out the outline of the soul sitting on the pavement ahead, up against the building on the corner of Bryant Park and 6th. She suddenly eased off on the throttle and slowed her mechanical beast down. Her face was full of concentration, knowing full well the conditions were going to make for a difficult stop. As she began to pull up, the bike hydroplaned down the wet road. She held tight to the reins in her vintage black bike leathers. Her soaking wet hair danced in the high wind as she handled the bike like a seasoned cowgirl on top of a mechanical bull. Suddenly, she slammed her biker boots down onto the pavement and skidded to a perfect-10 standstill. This was one girl who knew how to tame a Harley.
“Over here!” Violet screamed out desperately through the storm, but her call was muffled by the heavy rain pounding on the road. She brushed her auburn hair away from her eyes, some of it clinging to the sides of her pale face. Perhaps this particular wig from her selection was not exactly practical in this weather, but it certainly stood out among the office tower grays and dark skies, not to mention her black leathers. Her long locks fell in a tangled mess down her back, shoulders, and over her breasts, zipped up tight in her vintage jacket.
“Hey!” she shouted aggressively.
Sean tilted his head just enough to acknowledge the woman’s voice, but he could barely muster the strength to see who it was. Was it an angel in the wind, calling out his name to come towards the light? Fading in and out of consciousness, his eyes opened and closed every few seconds. Somehow, after a few moments, he managed to keep them open long enough and wide enough to see her.
Sitting there at the corner of Sixth and 42nd, waiting to die, he saw … was that … the girl? He looked like he could well have been dreaming. But as his eyes focused a little harder on the figure, he could slowly see her; Violet was sitting on her Harley, calling out to him in the rain, urging him to wake up.
“Sean!” she screamed in desperation again, as she quickly glanced behind her, a look of worry on her face that someone or something might be coming.
The rain backed off slightly, easing enough for Sean to hear himself think again. He came to. He woke up. He managed to summon a second wind that the singer Billy Joel had long sung about on these very streets. Realizing this was no dream, he forced himself to get up off the ground. He stumbled a few steps towards this auburn angel on the Harley, as he looked down 42nd and saw them coming... Four black 1970s Lincoln Continental automobiles, solid as a rock, bearing down on their position, powering t
hrough the rainwater spray from the road.
He hobbled the rest of the way to Violet as best he could.
“I’m beginning to think this city doesn’t like me,” he said to her in a barely there, weak, and beaten voice.
“Get on,” she replied, in no mood for his misplaced humor.
Violet reached to the small army-green canvas messenger bag draped over her shoulder and dug around inside, pulling out a syringe of Bliss, the bubblegum-pink designer drug of choice for the highest euphoria man had ever known. As Sean groaned out, pulling his leg over the leather seat of the Harley, getting on the back with her, Violet turned around and suddenly slammed the syringe into his leg, pushing down on the plunger and emptying the contents into him.
Sean gasped like he had just been revived from near death. His eyes closed tight and he let out a long, pleasurable moan from his lungs. Something sure made him feel better all of a sudden.
Violet threw the syringe to the gutter and quickly yanked at the Harley’s throttle, spinning the back tire to hell as they took off.
“Hold on,” she warned loudly.
In an instant, Sean had regained his awareness. He quickly wrapped his arms around her waist and held on tight. He had woken now, and instantly appeared like a new man. The look on his face was that of mixed emotions; shock and disbelief, yes ... but also that of immense ecstasy and euphoria.
“What the hell was that?” he slowly spat out at her, still feeling the effects of the Bliss flowing through his body. He brought his hand up to his face and seemingly looked at it in amazement, studying it and moving his fingers around in wonder, as though he’d just received a robotic, artificial limb of some kind. Sean was high as a kite for those first few moments after the injection, it was a wonder he stayed on the bike.