Chosen

Chapter 27, Wandering Aimlessly

 Chapter 27

‘Hey stop’!

I could hear their voices as I ran through the long and deserted alley ways.  Like smoke, the smell assaulted my nostrils, making me cough and splatter as I ran. 

My pain was heightened by my recent impact with a car trying to escape.  The officer was pulling out his Taser ready to take me down as I darted across the road, not bothering to look both ways. 

In Sydney of course, pedestrians were at the bottom of the food chain so when I stepped out, the driver expected I would stop.  Not stopping his van crashed right into me, knocking my head to the hard tarmac and breaking what felt like two of my ribs. 

I still wonder how I managed to get out of there alive, as my veins pulsated filling with adrenaline the pain seemed to cease for a moment long enough for me to pull myself to my feet.  Even after practically barrel rolling into the policeman’s car, I took off at a sprint; running down side streets half in the direction I needed to go.

The sun was setting now as the street lights became the only things lighting each street I ran down, with my pursuers still tracking me on foot, I was in trouble.

‘She’s over here’!

They were tracking my movements precisely, which made me believe my time was up.  Each corner I ran round, I would hear heavy footsteps soon following a few minutes after.      

Running down the long alleys, half trying to remember which direction I needed to go.  The darkness could be my friend in these dark corridors; I just didn’t know it yet.

The large sky scrapers seemed to be thinning out as I ran further towards the edge of town.  Each stride I took was followed by the screeching of tyres or yelling of people at the corner pubs, getting drunk off their brains.

A dog would bark with every few corridors I ran down, this felt like a scene out of a movie the way it was playing out.  Now all I needed to do was lose my followers so that this movie scene would end and I was free.

My breathing was getting heavy, making it difficult to hear whether I’d lost my pursuers.  Looking back I saw no one following deciding it was best to take a break, I threw myself into a nearby garbage bin; cursing to myself at what I’d just done.

Climbing over the lip, I threw myself in; shutting the disgusting lid behind me.  Crouching in the giant thing, I felt dirty and was waiting for my stomach to practically throw itself back out of my mouth as the smells of the trash hit me. 

Staying silent, voices approached where I was hidden; ‘she’s not here Joe, must have taken off winding down the other alleys; we don’t have enough men to search them all’.

Feeling someone kick the bin hard, I held back the gasp waiting to escape my throat.  ‘Well we’re going to keep looking!  The witch will skin us alive if we don’t find her’.

Hmm, maybe her workers did dislike her as much as I did.  That would explain why no one seemed that concerned when I managed to get out.  Hearing the men’s footsteps fade away, I sat for the next twenty minutes, listening and waiting for someone to open the lid and find me……but nothing happened.

· · · ·

The loud thumping between my ears had me feeling queasy as I walked down the street.  I was still in shock Hunter had let me go; I will admit he did try to stop me but he wasn’t persisting as if his job depended on it. 

Stopping off at a suburban post office, I managed to get the address of a local doctor in the area who I hoped would help me; Hunter had said he was an old worker at Advertise Anything but couldn’t handle the work.