Five Days from the Present
It was 2am, the man pressed his whole weight against the stone wall. He looked sideways, it was instinctive, police probing every moving shadow, sirens wailing, drawing closer, with each second the ordeal intensifying. Their intent violent. His contact dead, what went wrong?
The man tore at his shirt, reaching inside under his right arm, empty holster. Where was his pistol? He was alone except for the knowledge of instinct. The man plunged into sheets of blackness to escape. His vision clouded by the mist, he couldn’t see,his head hurt, he felt for the bullet, relieved it was a flesh wound. Where was he? His mental guard weakened from the hysteria of encounter. The error, he crossed over, he could not escape the predator who had been waiting patiently, silently to inject its poison into the lesions of the open cracks, there was no antidote to the corrosive force of greed, now it cornered him ready to deliver the final crushing blow. Leave me alone! Give me peace! He screamed in the silence of his mind. Everywhere there was danger, of capture, of eventual death. Pigalle, the red door, he had to make it to the red door!
The man made it to a wide avenue. He lunged into the nearest recess curling up into a foetal position in the shadows, accepting the fact that it might well be his last moment of life. He then suddenly sprung upwards and turned to face the wash of headlights coming towards him creating shadows rushing across his face, he held up his arms , pleading for assistance. The cars accelerated and passed him by. The desperate figure kept running in the middle of the wide deserted avenue. He turned a corner. Find the signal, a flickering lantern above the red door. He had to find the woman, the beautiful woman with the emerald eyes.
The man dodged between the houses, sweat blinding his vision, his pulse racing with the echo of sirens. Everywhere it seemed men were running towards him. Then he saw it, the Rue Jean Baptise, the edge of Pigalle, indistinguishable from the moon’s shifting light. Find a place to hide. Where? He lay pressed against a filthy brick wall in the ebon of darkness. If he could not control his panic he would lose. He wiped the trickling blood from his eyes, as he did he observed a row of neat three storey apartments, roofs and window frames leading up to recessed doorways washed in the light of carriage lamps. At the end of the trio of apartments he saw it, a short flight of stairs to his right. At the top of the stairs was a flickering light illuminating the hue of red. He ascended the stone steps and peered back over his shoulder. The man reached the tiny, narrow landing. He leaned his whole weight against the red door panting heavily, his breathing erratic.
The man looked down from the top of the stairs, the silhouetted outline of assassins were still moving swiftly across each building. It was only seconds before they reached him. Moments later he heard garbled voices from behind the red door. Three muted cracks splintered the arch above his head. The door swung open. The man fell backwards, the USB memory stick fell from his hands.
