Read Online Man Hunt by K. Edwin Fritz - Free Book Online Page B

shuddering stop.
    No more games, he thought.
    He ran straight into the alley before him, glad to see it wasn't a dead end. Behind him he heard the car reversing quickly then screech to another halt.
    "LiningLiningSilverLiningCloudySilverSilverLining." The quick rhythm of the litany kept pace with his speeding footsteps. It felt like he was floating on air. Running on clouds.
    He reached the next crossroad and turned left again in a wide arch that passed him within an inch of the brick corner. Left, he knew, was towards the center of the blue sector's section of the city.
    Find the center, he reminded himself. Find the grocery alley. It's my only chance.
    Behind him, the lack of echoing engine noise told him the car had exited the side street and was directly behind him again. He reached another crossroad and turned right. Behind him, the car had already halved the distance. The crack of the whip was again louder than the engine.
    Ahead he saw two alleys and another distant crossroad. His instinct told him to take the first alley. It was closer and it turned left, again towards the center of town. But then his mind went into a whirlwind of calculations. The second alley appeared to be atypically wider.
    Sunday, he reminded himself. Today is Sunday. Grocery day.
    Instead of turning, Obe lowered his head, leaned forward, and sprinted at full capacity. His lungs groaned. His legs begged for more oxygen. He ignored them, held his breath, and pushed through the pain. He needed to get to that second alley.
    He made it there a full second before the car and turned hard right, literally skidding to a halt on his bare feet. But he didn't care, didn't even notice. Directly in front of him was a wide, dead-end alley. And it was filled with men in blue jumpsuits.
     
     

6
     
    The car squealed around the corner and the men in the alley became a bevy of chaos and paranoia. Many tried to scale the walls or hid behind the single dumpster that huddled along one wall, but most crowded against the back wall. Those who were too stunned to move or too smart to trap themselves only stood and stared wide-eyed at the approaching car.
    The driver of the car pounded on the brake once again, and the car screeched, shuddered, and nose-dived to a violent halt in front of a line of four men in blue jumpsuits who remained unmoving. Obe was one of them, and he held his breath while a thin veil of dust wafted past.
    The next few seconds were a soup of tension. The crowd of men stood or crouched in growing fear, ready to bolt into a run of their own. The car sat, idling its loud, shimmied rumble, and seemed to stare the men down. Obe imagined himself as a chameleon. A blue-clad, gifted creature with the ability to vanish into the small sea of like-colored jumpsuits.
    Silver , he thought. Keep things silver. Don't look tired. Don't look guilty. Don't feel your screaming feet. And don't sweat. Just look scared like all the others.
    The car's roof had been removed, making it a crude convertible, and the three women who sat in it– two in front and one atop the rear seat back– were all too real. All too present. They had faces. They wore black T-shirts that wrapped tightly around their abnormally strong arms and firmed breasts. Their eyes were each filled with malice and barely-controlled hatred. The one who perched on the seat back was compulsively squeezing the wooden baseball bat gripped in her left hand. In the front passenger seat another woman held the handle of a whip. It's impossibly long tail trailed out the side of the car and dangled past the rear tires.
    Obe hadn't seen a woman face-to-face since his release, and it was quickly becoming too much for him to control. His lips and tongue mouthed the silver litany, and he was on the verge of giving it a voice.
    Then the woman with the bat leaned forward and quietly said something into the driver's ear. Seconds later, the car emitted a loud ca-chunk!, startling all the men. As it let off the brake and