Frightened Boy

Chapter Nine, part two - Devils

I ran. Guts trailed behind.

“There’s not going to be a bus! It's three in the fucking morning!” I shouted even as I was bounding down the metal fire escape.  I tried to ignore the fact that I was four stories in the air.  If the Voice responded, I didn’t hear it.

I was leading the charge down the third, second, and first floors.  The fire-escape ladder leading to the ground was up; I kicked it downwards, and it struck the ground with a clank.  I flew down the ladder and landed soft.

I turned back for a moment to see if I had been followed.  Deep in the murky black of night, I thought I saw a large figure just across the street. This was all I needed to send my brain into terror overload.  Guts hit the ground with a thud next to me, but I was already charging across the front of the lawn and into the first street I had to cross. 

“They’re all around you, closing in,” the Voice chirped from my hand.  Apparently, he knew just what to say to keep me running.  “Jump the fence to your right—now—and run across the complex until you come across another street.  There will be a bus waiting for you there.  Run as fast as you possibly can and don’t stop until you’re inside.”

As the Voice promised, a bus waited across the street. Looked empty, out of place in the night.

As I crossed over to the second street; something caught my eye.  It almost looked like a statue or the trunk of a tree, but a closer inspection made me freeze.  A figure cloaked in a charcoal-colored trench coat and wearing a hat with a long, circular brim.  The moment I saw him, he moved toward me, cloak billowing. Seconds to act, and I only froze.

 “Let’s go,” Guts said.  His thick fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled me into motion. 

We began running together across the grassy lawn to the street when I became aware that the shadows in the darkness behind me were twisting.  I was grappled and wrenched out of Gut’s grip and onto the ground; my attacker took me by surprise.  So focused on getting past the Stranger in front of me I hadn’t seen the trap lying in wait.  I was thrown onto the grass so hard that for a moment, the night sky spun above me.

The phone fell into the grass.  I struggled to crawl over and reach it as my attacker pulled at my legs.

“Give it up, kid! Come on.  You’ve got places to go.  You don’t want to keep Him waiting.”

I kicked my feet helplessly, never connecting with anything but heavy fabric.  I may as well have struggled against cretin curtains.  The bus began to pull away.  Guts reached the edge of the street and only now turned to realize I wasn’t with him. 

The first Stranger intercepted Guts, and he too wrestled with an amorphous fabric assailant. I watched him struggle just as a fist struck the side of my head, dizzying me with the spinning sky once again. 

Then blue and red lights shaded the green lawn and disrupted the darkness.  My attacker froze, as did I.  A police cruiser crawled down the street. The bus stopped suddenly, waiting for the officers to pass. 

I lunged for the cell phone and felt relief as I gripped its cool plastic body.  It was my only chance at survival.

The Stranger who was grappling with me let go of my legs and took a few steps backward, sinking into the shadows.  I waved for the cruiser to come to me as I staggered to my feet, relieved by my luck.  I could see two officers inside; they opened the doors and stepped out in unison.

“Do you see the police?  I did that.  Try to get on the bus. It won’t work for long.”  Only the sound of the phone pierced the silence, meeping pitifully into the eerie quiet.  The entire battle had frozen; I could see that Guts was free as well and was twisting about to find the Stranger who attacked him.