In the dream, I'm back inside my bedroom, standing over the lifeless husk that had once been my wife. As I stand there, the walls, the bed, everything melts away like red wax and I'm left in a vast blackness. I can hear heavy footsteps coming towards me, and raspy breathing from a dozen different mouths. From somewhere, I pull out a gun and begin firing, the muzzle-flashes seeming to be swallowed up by the absence of light. Whoever they are, I know they are the enemy. They're upon me now, but still I see nothing but the dark.
In the dream, my throat goes raw as I scream into the void.
I'm awakened by a slap to the face.
"Rise and shine, Maxie."
I look up into the raggedly cut eyeholes of a ski-mask, a mean smile nestled just underneath, jutting from its own torn hole. I frown slightly.
"Halloween's four months back down the hall, pal. Let a condemned man get some winks." Despite the humor, my hand is already sliding under my pillow for the jagged spork I lifted off of yesterday's dinner plate. Ski-boy's hand clamps down on mine before I have a chance to snag it.
"Get real, Payne, and keep your voice down. This is your big jail break, so shut up and do what you're told, or we'll just let the state of New York cover our tracks for us."
I wanted to believe it, but I had to be sure.
"The guy who sent you…what's he missing?" Ski-boy smirked at me.
"Aside from the chunk of cash he paid us to pluck your sorry ass out of here? An eye."
I push myself up on my elbows, my muscles screaming complaints of long weeks of inactivity. I scan the darkened ward and see two more masked figures, all covering the main doors and fidgeting nervously. Woden had obviously hired on the cheap. This didn't bode well.
My gaze finally skims to the bed beside mine, and I have an out of body experience as I see myself lying there, sleeping. My 'twin,' I realize. I never knew I looked that menacing. Hell, I'd probably want to execute me, too.
Ski-boy tosses me a dark shirt and pants, and I change quickly.
"Pssst!" Ski-boy 2 hisses at Ski-boy 1, "it's now or never. Let's move!"
It was like Escape from Alcatraz: armed guards on the catwalks, searchlights cutting through the blackness like lightsabers, and the oppressive instinct to keep silent. I didn't bother to think, just let the Ski patrol do their jobs and get me the hell out of there.
I'm still half asleep because it all seems like a dream as I'm running, stopping, and running again like a good day on the Harbor Freeway in L.A., and the feeling of a dream makes me think of home again, and…
SLAM I'm in a van before I know it, the sliding door ramming home and bringing me out of my stupor. Slowly, we roll away from whatever escape route we used, and pick up speed as the distance between me and steel bars increases.
We travel in silence, the heavy breathing of pumping adrenaline making the four of us sound like a convention of obscene phone calls in the cramped van. Once they regain their abilities of speech, the three huddle up near the front of the van, passing dark whispers I can't make out. In the back of my mind, worries over being executed just made a U-turn.
As we head off to god-knows-where, two of the Ski Patrol begin to grumble about full bladders and empty stomachs. Ski Boy 1 curses his own lack of stamina, and pulls over. Out the window, I see a comforting reminder of normal life: a gas station.
Ski Boy 2 is quickly elected to stay behind. "Get up here with me Payne. Last thing I'm gonna do is lose sight of my meal ticket."
I climb into the passenger seat as Ski Boys 1 and 3 peel off their masks and slide out of the van, crunching across gravel to their respective destinations of restroom and mini mart. Now up front, I have a better view of the outside world. It looks a lot different with the vertical bars subtracted from the picture.
Though my thoughts should be more centered on the early spring morning, and the comfortable buzz of freedom, my eyes strayed to a newspaper vending box outside the mini mart, blaring danger from its window:
Cops being taken down in my town wasn't news to me, but the two cop pictured in the article brought back the wrong kind of memories: they had been standing outside the interrogation room before and after Woden had made his devil's deal with me. They had seen him arrive. They had left us alone to talk.
They had known too much.
It was a reach, I knew, but a guy like Woden doesn't tolerate loose ends. Like his his cop helpers. Like the Inner Circle. Like me. And with a crazy man now in my place, the chances of me testifying to Woden's involvement, to his very existence, were nil.
Hindsight had just made me Nostradamus, and it was time to fight the future.
Without preamble I cocked up my elbow and threw it firmly into Ski Boy 2's nose with a satisfying crunch of cartilage and a spout of blood. I grab the butt of the 9mm sticking out of his waistband and wrap my finger around the trigger. I look into his dazed and shock-filled eyes. The thought that I might be wrong about the double cross flashes into my brain.
Nervous is in my stomach, and focus in my mind. But my heart isn't paying attention. I pull the trigger, squeezing a muffled bullet through his chest and into the seat behind him. The surprise comes to his eyes one final time, and then his gaze turns to the infinite.
Immediately I scan the gas station. My crossing the double crosser hadn't drawn any undue attention. I look at the keys in the ignition, entertaining the thought of just bolting. It would be easy, but it would also leave tongues to speak of my escape to Woden. Besides, I needed at least one of them to fill me in on some details.
I wipe the blood from Ski Boy's face with his sleeve and prop his slumped body up as best I can, turning his face towards the brightening horizon and away from the station where his comrades would soon be emerging. I folded my arms, hiding the 9mm from view, and readied myself.
I didn't have long to wait.
Ski Boys 1 and 3 exited the station in unison. 1 was sinking his brit-crooked teeth into a twinkie, and 3 was zipping up his fly coming out of the restroom. I take a deep breath as 1 slides the van door open and hops in, 3 close behind.
"Ok, let's roll. Hey, I said - "
Using my peripheral vision as best I can, I judge the distance between the hard headrest of my seat to 1's head, and grab the seat recline lever, slamming my body backward, cracking 1 in the forehead as I roll to the side and jam the muzzle of the 9mm hard into 3's ribcage and squeeze off a single, fatal round. The shot isn't nearly as well muffled as the first had been, and it sounds like a bomb has gone off in the small van. 1 is stunned just long enough for me to introduce his nosetip to the scalding gun muzzle.
For a pair of hard heartbeats, we just stare at each other. I get the first word in.
"How long until you were supposed to off me?" Ski Boy is smarter than I gave him credit for. He knew when lying was just going to be counter-productive.
"A-as soon as we had you to the hole we dug." Definitely smarter.
"What made you think Woden wasn't going to erase you too? You're as much a liability as I am. You've seen his face." This is where the smarts ended. I could see revelation edge into his eyes.
"Shit."
"Where were you supposed to go to get your payment?"
"Warehouse…lower east side. Njord Shipping. Number three."
Looking at him, knowing he'd been duped, or let himself be duped I suppose, I didn't have it in me to get rid of him.
"I know the last place you'd run to is Mr. One-eye, so I'm giving you a Get Out Of Death free card. This is a one-time offer. First, you're going to unload your buddies from the van. Then you're going to pick a direction and start running. You'd better hope I don't see your face again, capice?"
#1 nods dumbly and scurries to drag his pals bodies from the van while I clean myself up and get into the driver's seat. I ignore the warm and wet stain of drying blood seeping through my shirt as I lean back and start the engine. I speed off with a warm 9 at my side and a scared 1 eating my dust. Playing by numbers, I'd be back into the den of evil called New York by nightfall.