Brian Freeman - Marathon

Malik hung up and started moving again.

He kept an ear to the wind, expecting sirens, and he wasn’t disappointed. Barely a minute passed before he heard them. They were distant, but they grew louder, and they came from every direction, like insects to the light. They’d all be here soon. The police. FBI. SWAT. Helicopters overhead. They’d bring their assault rifles and their robots. They’d abandon their other positions and leave Khan a path to escape across the golf course and drive south out of the city.

Malik kept off the street, but he stayed parallel to Kolstad Avenue, heading south on a dense trail through the woods. He’d hiked here many times, so he knew the area well. Where the path ended near Wabasha Street, he found himself between two little white houses. A streetlight made it impossible to stay in the dark. He jogged to the corner, catching his breath and leaning against a fat elm tree where the shadows protected him. The streets were still empty, but the police were close. Silhouettes appeared in the house windows as the sirens became screams and neighbors realized that something strange was happening just outside their doors.

Everyone would know soon.

The bomber was here.

Malik broke cover and crossed the street. His timing was bad. Headlights flooded to life not half a block away, from a police car coasting silently down the street. It accelerated with a screech as the driver spotted him, and a bullhorn crackled through the air.

“ Freeze! Stay where you are! ”

Malik ran down the middle of Ewing Avenue. As he did, he drew his pistol from inside his belt. Behind him, tires squealed as the squad car jerked around the street corner. He stopped, cocked the weapon, and turned around and fired toward the windshield of the police car. Once, twice, three times. Brakes jerked the car to a stop. Glass shattered. He saw the driver’s door fly open, and Malik spun away and ran again.

Bullets followed him.

The police officer fired again and again. The game was on. Here I am. Chase me.

He cut from the street into the nearest yard, where the frame of the house blocked him from the cop. He wasn’t concerned about noise now. He ducked between a red pickup truck and an open garage and fought his way through a swath of lilac bushes. He heard boots behind him, but there were no more gunshots. He jumped a low chain-link fence and zigzagged from house to house, hugging the walls. When he stopped and listened, he heard sirens everywhere, almost on top of him. He sucked in a breath and charged down a narrow driveway that broke out onto Anoka Street.

Another squad car was there, its lights off. Another police officer was there, covered behind the open door of the cruiser.

“ Stop! Hands in the air! ”

Malik fired. A bullet hit the cruiser door. Another sailed high. The cop ducked down but then spun from the car and fired back multiple times. Dirt and gravel spit from the ground around Malik, and he leaped toward the cover of the nearest tree, but he was too late. A bullet hit his leg, shattering bone, and his weight carried him down. He rolled over onto his back, the gun still in his hand.

The cop stood up.

Mistake.

They both aimed. They both fired again, over and over, a hail of bullets. Bark from the tree exploded. Dust made a cloud. The cop shouldn’t have missed, but somehow, he did. Malik, dizzied by pain, took a wild shot that never should have hit a thing, but somehow, his bullet drilled through the cop’s throat, sending up a spray of blood. The cop’s gun fell; his hands flew to his throat. Malik pushed himself to his feet immediately. His right leg dragged like dead weight. The street was dark, and the cop couldn’t see his face, so he didn’t waste time firing again. He needed to get away, so he crossed in front of the squad car and lost himself in the maze of trees and yards.

He limped as fast as he could. More cops would be converging on the area in seconds. Blood trailed behind him, running in a warm stream down his skin and leaving a path for anyone to follow. He passed a back porch and found someone’s T-shirt draped over the wooden railing. He grabbed it and tied it around his leg, soaking up the blood, and then he pushed his way into the trees to cover his trail.

He kept going. The lights of the police cars were bright enough and close enough to light up the sky above the trees like fireworks. He heard their radios and the bark of voices nearby. Cops were in the woods. Dogs bayed. Close by, windows and doors slammed shut. As word spread, the neighborhood locked down. He was lost and dizzy. His leg was numb, and blood overtook the tourniquet. Pain throbbed with his heartbeat, like a hot poker pressed over and over to the hole in his skin.

He knew he couldn’t go much farther.

He staggered across another street, but he didn’t know which one. An open stretch of grass lay in front of him, between a stand of trees and a two-story beige house with a screened porch in the rear. Behind the house, he spotted a windowless aluminum storage shed with a red door.

Malik crossed the grass. He couldn’t support his weight anymore. When he slipped to his knees, he crawled. There were lights on in the house, but no one came to the windows, and no one looked outside. He dragged himself past a fenced garden filled with tomato vines and stopped at the door of the storage shed. It slid upward on tracks, and he threw up the door and rolled inside. With a bang, the door slammed closed behind him. The interior smelled of soil and fertilizer. In the blackness, he couldn’t see anything, but he heard the buzz of bees as he disturbed a hive nestled in the beams overhead.

Your Lord told the bees, build homes in the hills and trees and in the structures made by men.

Malik sank backward, his body wedged against the metal door. He listened to the angry bees, and he waited for the end.

The neighbors on Northfield Street had given Ethan only one rule for house-sitting: Don’t let the cat out.

They were spending two weeks on an ecotourism vacation somewhere in the mountains of Costa Rica. For Ethan, who was sixteen years old and lived a block away, this was the best summer adventure ever. His neighbors, the Carlsons, had stocked the fridge with Mountain Dew and homemade cookie dough and frozen Heggies Pizza. He could play Minecraft all night long. He could binge-watch Game of Thrones on their sixty-inch television and replay the nude scenes as many times as he wanted.

It was an easy gig. Water the plants. Scoop the litter box. Mow the lawn. And above all, above all, don’t let the cat out.

Now he was screwed.

The sirens had brought Ethan to the front window, where it looked like a Jason Bourne movie outside. Police cars roared up and down the street. Floodlights scanned the woods and the yards. His mother had called to tell him: Stay inside the house, and make sure everything’s locked. He’d followed instructions, but when he spotted three police officers in military gear walking side by side down the street with rifles in their hands, he couldn’t stop himself. He cracked the front door and called out: “Hey, guys, what’s going on?”

One of the cops shouted, “Get back in the house, lock the door, and don’t come out!”

Ethan did, but he was too late. The door was only open a few inches, but a few inches were plenty for Fuzzball. Like a streak of orange lightning, the cat was out the door and gone.

“Crap!”

He bolted down the steps into the driveway to chase the cat. The cop saw him and had a fit.

“Son, I said, get inside the house right now! ”

He started to explain about the missing cat, but when a cop with a rifle marched up the driveway toward him, he turned around and ran back inside and locked the door. That was half an hour ago. He was still inside, the cops were still outside, and so was Fuzzball. He didn’t dare open the front door again.