Michael Ares - Dayfall

As he crouched behind the umbrella, and tried over the din to hear signs of which direction the cops might be moving, he starting noticing for the first time that the wound beneath his chin was throbbing, and it seemed now to become more and more painful as he thought about it. He reached up and touched it gingerly, finding that it wasn’t bleeding out, but was decidedly moist and sticky. It hurt even more when he touched it, and especially when his head jerked down involuntarily because a series of gunshots split the air not far from him. He peered out carefully from the side of the umbrella and saw that the vigilante cops were now in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and were shooting anybody who was jostling to get into a car, or trying to move theirs in an aggressive fashion.

Jon turned away from the carnage on the street and thought about making a run for it from behind the umbrella, toward Mallory’s bar. He looked for other cover in that direction and saw the big monument to General Worth, from whom the little square had gotten its name. It was a fifty-foot high granite obelisk with a thick base that had two bronze reliefs, one of a man on a horse and one of something else that Jon couldn’t identify. The monument was surrounded by a little patch of grass with a small cast-iron fence around the outside of it. And right in front of the fence sat a young woman who was sobbing and cradling the body of an older man.

Jon tensed his body and readied to leave his crouch and hiding place, planning to run to the other side of the monument as fast as he could. But then he looked back at the young woman on the ground at the foot of the monument.

It was Mallory.

Jon pressed his eyes closed and shook his head, in case he was hallucinating, but when he looked back at the woman, it was still Mallory. And the older man she was cradling was her father…. He was recognizable even from this angle.

Jon threw caution to the wind, ignoring the danger of the cops in the street, and ran over to her.

“Mallory,” he said as he slowed his approach.

She squinted at him through tear-stained eyes, not recognizing him, and he realized that the sun was behind him. He moved sideways and closer until his shadow covered her head and she could see him better.

“It’s me, it’s Jon,” he said, holding up his hands, but then realizing the handcuffs didn’t look very good.

“Oh, fucking great,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t think this day could get worse.”

“What happened to your dad?” Jon asked, ignoring both what she said and the continuing gunshots and screams to his right.

“Too many people from the street were crowding into the bar, and he tried to stop them. They beat him really bad….” She choked up again. “I was taking him to CityMD on Twenty-Third, but I only got him halfway. He’s dead.” She looked up at Jon again, and her eyes went from grief to hatred in a moment. “This is what happens when your fucking Mayor is in charge!”

“She’s not my—” Jon started. “Listen, you were right about Render. It was Gant behind the murders. I tried to stop him, and the Mayor…. I kept you from being blown up.” He held up his cuffed hands again. “Look, the Mayor framed me…. I’m not on her side. I wasn’t, I mean…”

As Jon searched for words to mollify her, he glanced back at the street to see that the group of murderous cops was almost to his side of Fifth Avenue, though a bit south from where he was. He hoped they would turn farther south as they continued their sweep of the area.

“Did you say CityMD on Twenty-Third?” Jon suddenly asked, a weird look on his face. “Is that across the street from a big home store?”

“Yeah,” Mallory said, with her own odd look. “But… what the hell are you talking about?!” She started crying again.

Jon looked at the cops again to see which direction they were moving, and this time one of them looked back at him. Jon was sure the Blue Shirt recognized him when the cop started talking to his comrades and pointing toward him.

He felt a kind of panic he had never experienced before, and his chin started pulsating with the worst pain yet, which spread to the rest of his head. He had to force himself to think about whether he had implicated Mallory by talking to her, or whether the cops would ignore her if he ran away by himself. He was about the do the latter when the cop with the megaphone settled the issue with what seemed like a form of divine revelation.

“Hey, you,” the cop’s voice rang out. “Stay there, both of you!”

Since he said “both of you,” Jon took this as a sign, and reached down with his cuffed hands to pull Mallory to her feet.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, shrugging him off.

“Look, Mallory,” he blurted out, “see those cops coming our way? They will kill both of us. You have to trust me, and come with me now .”

“I’m not leaving my dad,” she said, but seemed conflicted because she could now see the cops, the look in their eyes, and the guns they were raising as the first of them cleared the last row of cars on the street. Though they were still at least a hundred feet away, the only thing that kept them from a clear shot at Jon and Mallory were the obstacle of the tables and downed umbrellas in the little square.

“Your dad would want you to stay alive,” Jon said, holding out his hands again. “Come on!”

She didn’t take his hand, but after a few moments of consideration, she laid her dad’s body gently down and stood up, staring in fear at the oncoming cops when she saw the one in the front raise his gun higher and point it directly at them, after nonchalantly blowing away a pedestrian who had gotten too close to him.

“This way,” Jon said, giving up trying to take her hand and diving into the jam of cars to his left on Broadway. As he navigated quickly through them to the other side of the street, he glanced back to make sure Mallory was behind him, and was glad to see that she was. He glanced back farther at the squad of cops, and was even more happy to see that a suicidal motorist had turned out of the left side of the jam and barreled into several of the tables and umbrellas, directly in the path of the cops. Jon didn’t know if the driver was angry at them after witnessing their street-shooting spree, or trying to save him or Mallory, or what. But whatever the reason, it was definitely suicidal, because the cops paused their pursuit to riddle the car and driver with bullets.

Jon and Mallory streaked through the last of the cars on Broadway and around the bank building on the corner of Twenty-Fourth Street. Jon pulled her against the wall on the other side and looked around the corner to see what was happening with the cops. Other motorists nearby had become enraged at their deranged brand of justice, or were trying to protect themselves, and they were pulling out of the jam and trying to run over them with their cars, or smash other cars into them. At least one of the cops was hit, and they all seemed occupied, at least for now, with firing into all the cars around them.

“Was this the way you were gonna go?” Jon hurriedly asked Mallory, panting for breath. “To the urgent care?”

“Yeah,” Mallory answered, still puzzled, “there’s an alley in the middle of the block that goes over to Twenty-Third.” She watched as John nodded, then added, “But my dad’s dead…. Where are we going?”

Jon peered back around the corner and saw that while three of the remaining Blue Shirts were still occupied in some way with the cars on the street, four of them had now broken away and were coming after him and Mallory.

He grabbed her arm and started pulling her down the sidewalk. She shrugged it off almost immediately, but did run after him. The sidewalk was almost empty, except for a few dead or injured bodies that they had to swerve around—most people by now had sought shelter inside buildings or vehicles. The street itself, however, was packed pretty tightly…. It was a one-way going west toward Broadway, with only one lane for cars trying to move between the ones parked on each side.