Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
He stepped into the shower-shave unit, trying to relax, to collect his
racing thoughts. Above all, he tried to stay the fear that burned
through his mind, driving him to panic and desperation. The memory of
the last hellish night was too stark to allow relaxation--the growing
fear, the silent, desperate hunt through the night; the realization that
their numbers were increasing; his frantic search for a hiding place in
the New City; and finally his panic-stricken, pell-mell flight down into
the alleys and cobbled streets and crumbling frame buildings of the Old
City.... Even more horrible, the friends who had turned on him, who
turned out to be _like_ them.
Back in the bedroom, he lay down again, his body still tense. There were
sounds in the building, footsteps moving around on the floor overhead, a
door banging somewhere. With every sound, every breath of noise, his
muscles tightened still further, freezing him in fear. His own breath
was shallow and rapid in his ears as he lay, listening, waiting.
If only something would happen! He wanted to scream, to bang his head
against the wall, to run about the room smashing his fist into doors,
breaking every piece of furniture. It was the _waiting_, the eternal
waiting, and running, waiting some more, feeling the net drawing tighter
and tighter as he waited, feeling the measured, unhurried tread behind
him, always following, coming closer and closer, as though he were a
mouse on a string, twisting and jerking helplessly.
If only they would move, do something he could counter.
But he wasn't even sure any more that he could detect them. And they
were so careful never to move into the open.
He jumped up feverishly, moved to the window, and peered between the
slats of the dusty, old-fashioned blind at the street below.
An empty street at first, wet, gloomy. He saw no one. Then he caught the
flicker of light in an entry several doors down and across the street,
as a dark figure sparked a cigarette to life. Harry felt the chill run
down his back again. Still there, then, still waiting, a hidden figure,
always present, always waiting....
Harry's eyes scanned the rest of the street rapidly. Two three-wheelers
rumbled by, their rubber hissing on the wet pavement. One of them
carried the blue-and-white of the Old City police, but the car didn't
slow up or hesitate as it passed the dark figure in the doorway. They
would never help me anyway, Harry thought bitterly. He had tried that
before, and met with ridicule and threats. There would be no help from
the police in the Old City.
Another figure came around a corner. There was something vaguely
familiar about the tall body and broad shoulders as the man walked
across the wet street, something Harry faintly recognized from somewhere
during the spinning madness of the past few weeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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