Devon Ford - The Fall

“Leave them,” he said, “signal the rest of the team to pull back.”

“Any chance of the Mossberg?” Jake asked, indicating the shotgun that Joe had brought with him. Joe and Sebastian exchanged a look, the latter nodding to his friend, and Jake was happily reunited with some heavier weaponry. Cal was now wearing the duty belt and the chrome semi-auto had made its way into the bag he carried.

It took them twenty minutes with the cold, watery air stinging their faces to cross. Sebastian throttled down and turned the boat to allow it to bump against a wooden pier where Joe threw a lashing line over a post to hold them steady. The three of them climbed unsteadily to dry land and turned to face the others.

“My advice,” Sebastian said seriously, “is to get a car and head west, but stay off the main road and away from big towns unless absolutely necessary. Good luck,” he said, turning away to power the boat back out into open water.

The three stood on the side of the river and watched the boat motor away, all of them wondering if they had made the right choice. To Cal, his two companions were invaluable. He was a stranger in the country, totally unaware of the customs and cultures and still not possessing even the slightest clue about how big the continent truly was.

“There’s a dealership just north of here,” Jake said, “come on.” He set off, not waiting for the others to follow. Louise was still quiet, almost catatonic and didn’t answer either of them when they spoke. Cal took her left hand after switching the Glock to his left and half pulled her along. Finding the dealership in an alarmingly empty street devoid of activity, Jake told them to wait while he looked around. Cal tried to figure out why nobody was fleeing in panic, but guessed that most had either already left or were simply asleep as normal, like the events on Manhattan didn’t affect them.

“It’s locked up,” Jake said as he returned to them. “We’ll need to break in.” Cal nodded his agreement, leading Louise after him and growing more concerned that she may be in shock.

“Jake,” he said, “she’s exhausted or in shock or something, she needs to rest.” Jake looked at her, seeing a vacancy in her eyes and pursing his lips as he thought.

“Car first, rest after,” he said.

He led them on a short lap of the forecourt, knowing that they would never get one of the premium vehicles from inside through the huge glass walls. Pointing out a pickup truck to Cal and gaining agreement, they went back to the entrance. Breaking a panel in the glass door Jake leaned in and flipped the bolts, pushing the door open over the protesting screams of glass catching on metal. Walking confidently into the sales office he repeated the actions of Sebastian on the other side of the river and forced open the key locker. He found a selection of Ford keys and took them outside to press the buttons in turn, until one was rewarded with a flash as the doors unlocked.

They piled into the truck, throwing the big price tag from the window onto the ground. Jake backed it out carefully and slid the selector into drive. Driving through the mostly empty streets and out into more open country, Cal saw the young cop nodding his head and struggling to maintain a steady 60 mph.

“Okay,” he said, “we need to stop.” Jake was too exhausted to offer any disagreement. The adrenaline-fueled night on the run and the gunfights had taken almost everything from him both physically and emotionally. He pulled the truck off the road, killed the engine, and fell back in his seat. Cal did the same, after looking behind to see Louise fast asleep on the back seat. Closing his eyes, exhaustion soon took him too.

Cal woke with a start, dragged from sleep by something he couldn’t yet figure out. Looking over at Jake, he saw that their driver was still asleep and slumped against the window. He realized that the sound which had alerted him to something being wrong, which had dragged him from unconsciousness, was the panicked clicking of the rear door handle and rapid breathing with it.

Spinning in his seat, he startled Louise who was trying desperately to open the door but uncomprehending that they were locked, and Jake was sat in front of the controls to release them. On seeing Cal, Louise snatched up the compact pistol next to her, Jake’s backup weapon which he had never taken back from her, and pointed at his face.

He threw both hands up in a movement so rapid that he woke Jake with a start and prompted him to swing his head left and right looking for a threat outside the steamed-up glass of the cab, only to realize that Cal’s eyes were fixed on the back seat. Spinning to look, he froze as the terrified face of Louise stared at them over the top of his own gun as she switched her aim in turn. Both men started to speak at once.

“Louise, it’s okay—” said Cal.

“What the hell?” was Jake’s response.

Louise said nothing. Her mouth moved as though she wanted to speak but hadn’t done so in so long that the ability to converse was evading her. Her brow furrowed in what looked like severe confusion. The little finger of her right hand, clamped so tightly around the stubby pistol grip that her knuckles showed white, twitched involuntarily. She glanced around, looking out of the windows to try and make sense of what she saw. She still couldn’t speak and looked more and more like her panic and frustration would cause her to squeeze one pound of pressure too much on the trigger of the compact Glock in her hand. Her skin was pale but appeared wet with a sheen of sweat over her face, and the shakes competed with the twitching of her fingers to totally transform the woman they had fled with—that Cal had spent two days with—into someone they didn’t recognize. Nor, did it seem, that she recognized them.

Slowly, Jake opened his door and activated the central locking to produce a click from all four doors. Louise didn’t register this other than to look at the source of the noise, which made no logical sense if she wanted to escape the confines of the truck. Jake slipped his legs and body from the open door, never taking his eyes off her, but she didn’t react to him. Cal glanced at Jake, then did the same out of the passenger side. Louise stayed staring forwards, not responding. Both men stepped carefully away from the truck, neither of them understanding the sudden change in her behavior. She had been distant ever since the hotel, but then she had shot and killed someone about to kill Cal. She had been quiet throughout their adrenaline-fueled flight from New York, and was almost catatonic when they had reached the far side of the Hudson River, but now they were faced with what seemed like a completely different person. Jake snapped his fingers for Cal’s attention, then motioned for him to go to the rear side door which was furthest away from her. He stepped carefully toward the side she was sat on, and spoke to Cal.

“Open it, carefully,” he told him.

He did, and Louise’s eyes turned slowly toward him as she still held the gun tightly pointed forwards at the windshield.

Jake stepped close, snatched the door open and clamped a hand hard over the top of the gun, trying to block the topslide from working even if she pulled the trigger. He pulled the gun easily from her grasp as she turned her head toward him and recoiled, letting the gun be taken from her hands. She still seemed utterly bewildered about what was going on.

“Louise!” Cal said, making her slowly turn her head back toward him and stare with seemingly unseeing eyes. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer, just stared at him blankly wearing a confused look of anger.

“She doesn’t look so good,” Jake said. “Has she got any medical conditions?”