The Final Hour

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The thunder rolled again. Lightning flashed-sheet lightning that turned all the dark windows silver-white.

Blade held his arm stretched out straight in front of him, the barrel of the 9mm automatic in his hand leveled at the spot right between my eyes. That barrel and its cold, black bore were less than a yard away from me.

Blade didn’t know yet the police were coming. He didn’t know he had only seconds of freedom left. He took his time. He smiled his faraway smile, full of his bizarre, dreamy joy at dealing death.

“Thanks for the help, punk,” he said.

And he pulled the trigger.

By then, I had already sent my kick flying up in his direction, my foot sweeping in a broad crescent from the floor to his hand. The side of my shoe connected with his wrist at the same moment the gun went off. I felt the cold kiss of death speed past my cheek as the bullet missed me by inches.

Then Blade’s hand went wide and the gun flew from his fingers, twirling through the air, down toward the floor.

Before it even landed, I was at the open window. I grabbed hold of the sill and leapt through.

“Grab him!” Blade shouted-but whatever else he might’ve said was drowned out by another loud blast of thunder.

I landed upright on the pavement outside the building. At the same moment my feet touched the ground, the sky opened and the rain came. There was no buildup. No slow drizzle of warning. It came down in a sudden flood, as if a trapdoor had opened in the sky and the water was just dumped through it.

I ran. Away from the line of cop cars still racing toward us out of the wilderness. The second I started moving, I heard their sirens wind up behind me. They screamed into the sky-and then were drowned out by the next roll of thunder as the rain spilled down, drenching me.

I raced across the mall pavement, already kicking up puddles where the water had collected in the broken spaces. The silver splashes fanned into the dark air in front of me as I dashed through the open for the shelter of the abandoned white buildings across the way.

Another crack of thunder-and at the same time I saw a spark and a cloud of white plaster explode off the wall ahead of me. Silent gunfire-the sound of the shot drowned out by the storm.

I glanced back and saw Blade, the murder burning in his eyes, leveling the 9mm to take yet another crack at me.

But at the same time, the sirens of the cop cars got louder as the army of police descended on the place. Behind Blade, I could see his panicked buddies rolling out the windows, scrambling toward a couple of pickups-the getaway vehicles they had parked around the side.

Blade’s eyes shifted just slightly to see how much time he had left. His so-called friends weren’t going to wait for him with the police so close-he knew that. He leveled the gun at me for one last shot.

But before he could take it, I had faced front. I had reached the buildings on the other side of the mall lane. I pushed off my foot to dodge to the side. I slipped on the wet pavement, tumbling down onto my shoulder, rolling through the downpour until I could leap to my feet again.

This time, I heard the gun go off, a loud blast echoing through the storm. This time, the bullet was nowhere near me. My own dodge and fall had carried me out of Blade’s line of fire. Another cloud of white dust exploded off one of the abandoned buildings, the powder rising into the dark rain. The sirens screamed and the thunder drowned them out and then the thunder fell away and the sirens screamed again.

As I regained my feet, I looked back once more. Blade was reluctantly turning away to join the others in their trucks. The engines started. The headlights split the darkness, lighting the downpour. With a screech of tires, the trucks pulled away from the curb, sending sheets of water into the air.

I was running again, meanwhile, in the opposite direction. Across the large mall parking lot and into the alleys. Between the far buildings where it would be hard for the police cars to follow. Each time I broke out into the open, I dodged to the side and rushed toward another alley. Down it. Through. The rain was falling so hard now it nearly blinded me, but it didn’t really matter. There was nowhere to go except out of the mall, out into the open country away from the roads. Anything that might make it difficult for the cop cars to follow me.

I ran through that empty, abandoned mall as fast as I’d ever run. Battered, beaten, exhausted from our long trek through the sewers, drenched now from the downpour. None of it mattered. I just ran.

As I reached the edge of the pavement, as I crossed the border into the surrounding wilderness, I glanced back one last time.

The escape was over. That fast. That completely. Through the curtains of rain, I could make out the shapes of Blade’s two getaway trucks. They had come to a standstill, cut off and surrounded by the police cars. The cops were on the pavement, kneeling behind their cars, guns drawn and leveled. I could see their wavering silhouettes through the rain. The wavering silhouettes of the thugs were pouring out of the trucks with their hands up. There was no shooting. There was no point, nowhere for them to run. Our race through the sewer was all the freedom they were going to get.

I turned and pushed on, gasping, over the edge of the pavement. My feet sank into soggy earth as I scrambled through an empty field of mud and stone that went on as far as I could see. Which wasn’t far. The rain pretty much blinded me.

I plunged over the edge of a ridge before I even knew the ridge was there. The next second, I was lurching downhill, my legs barely under control as my long strides carried me over the steep slope. I descended into a small flat with low hills on every side of me. I had no idea which direction was which, or what was up ahead. I just ran on, climbing up a slope, half upright, half slipping and sliding, my fingers digging for purchase in the mud.

I came over the slope and stood still for a second, panting. Trying to get my bearings, trying to see where I should go. There was nothing around me but hills-hills of dirt-and rain turning the dirt to sludge. The great dark clouds churned above me. Thunder rolled. Lightning struck with a snakelike hiss-a jagged electric line this time. It reached all the way down from the sky to strike the earth maybe a mile or so up ahead of me. I held my breath at the awesome sight of it.

The rain plastered my hair to my scalp. The water poured into my eyes and into my open mouth as I stood panting for breath. I shivered from the cold.

Finally, I chose a direction. I started running again.

I had taken only a single step when an engine roared and a pair of headlights came flying over the hill in front of me.