Chapter 8: Flight
Chloe staggered into the alleyway and collapsed.
At least, she thought it was an alley. Hard to tell, through all the spots and stars in her vision. Oh, and the millions of rusty, white hot needles that shot through her lungs every time she hyperventilated. Bit distracting, that.
A few minutes ago, it felt as though her legs were on fire. She couldn't feel them anymore they must have burned off.
On her third attempt, Chloe managed to convince her arms that they were not, in fact, lead weights, and pulled herself upright.
"Stay calm, Chloe," she told herself. "Control your breathing. Don't black out."
She blacked out.
She jumped to her feet moments later, terrified. "What? Where! When?"
Then she remembered why you shouldn't stand up really fast when all your blood's pooled in your legs, and collapsed again.
"Think I'll lay here for awhile," she thought, woozily. "It's a nice place. Dirt. Trash. Mud. No one trying to kill me. Hey, look, a mouse. Hee!"
Let's see now… how did she get here?
The past few minutes were a blur of speed. She remembered branches; some were stuck in her hair. Running. Jumping. A car. ("Damned teenagers," she thought.) Seven or twelve random turns. An alley. Another alley. Did she get the bag? Must have; it was in her hand and all. And did someone really coat that block of C-4 with neurotoxin? (1)
And now she was… in an alley. Yes. An alley. Noun: a narrow passage between or behind buildings. Yup.
So. She was lost. Very lost.
On the plus side, there were no ninjas here.
"Damned (pant!) ninjas (wheeze!)," she said.
She slithered upright.
She stifled a scream.
"Ribs are pain," she thought. "Joy." Let's see, she had an emergency medical kit somewhere in this cloak, yes? She cracked it open, hoping for morphine. Or vodka. Preferably both.
She got a sandwich.
And a note.
"My darling Chloe," she read, "I thought you might be hungry, signed, Altena."
Out of habit, she checked the back.
"'Bon appetite.' Oh."
She took a bite.
Grape jelly.
Again.
She dropped it on the mouse (2). "Damn you, Altena," she muttered. "I wanted roast beef."
So. Lost. Wounded. Pursued. Not, upon reflection, her best night on the town.
Well, at least she could defend herself.
She checked her weapons. Funny, she didn't remember fighting a blender. "I'm boned," she thought.
She shuffle-slumped out of the alley, gritting her teeth against the pain. She looked up, sighted on the North Star, and limped in the general direction of home. The precious grocery sack dangled from her clenched fist. "This had better be some darn good milk," she mumbled.
She bumped into someone. "Pardon me," she mumbled.
"Well-ah, well-ah, well," said a slippery voice, "what a coincidence, eh boys?" Greaser cracked his knuckles. Ripper and Goggles laughed in a menacing matter before clutching their sides in agony. "Just the one we were lookin' for." He sneered, staying just out of striking distance. "You and me, we're gonna have words, girl. You owe me…for this."
He pointed at his nose. It was quite swollen, and very red. Someone had fixed it.
Always one to repay her debts, she broke it again.
"(World of pain)!" he said.
"You're welcome," she said, turning to go.
A hundred tiny, deadly turnstiles clicked in the night.
"Funny," thought Chloe. "Didn't notice them."
'Them' referred to the 77.5 men (3) various heights, shapes, and body piercings that made up the snarling, be-weaponed mob that occupied the street, several nearby roofs, and her immediate future.
There were guns. There were knives. There were chains. There were sticks (the big ones, with the nasty pointy bits).
There was even a sheep.
It had a Mohawk.
"Bad sign," thought Chloe, spotting it. She eyed the mob as they closed in, trying to stare them all down.
"Git 't!" spat Greaser, as his associates helped him to his feet. "Yur g'n git it! We ghnn stab yuh, gut yuh, 'n stab yuh guts, 'n, uhh… Ahh, jus git 'r 'lready!"
The mob heaved, like indigestion in spiked leather. The front line roared, charged, raised their blades, clubs, and axes…
…saw their opponent's feral eyes…
…and hesitated, for just a fraction of a second.
Two thugs became sprays of blood. Another's head snapped back and stayed there. A third spun on his own axis. Blade and boot swished in silent, deadly arcs, a single chord of carnage lost in the symphony of brutality. Men fell, some dead, some dying, others faking it, all trampled into the ground by the onrushing horde.
"Too many of them!" Chloe realized, as she dodged a truck shaped like a fist. "Run!" A giant with an axe tried to chop her. She drove it into the dirt, ran up the arm, and kicked off the face. Shouts of rage and confusion followed her as she ran across the sea of shoulders and dove for the nearest unoccupied location: the alley.
Which, she now realized, was a dead-end.
"Nuts," she thought.
Bullets spattered in the dirt about her feet. A punk with an Uzi rained death from above as a huge man slipped on a carelessly discarded jelly sandwich (4). Chloe charged towards the end of the alley, kicked off the brick wall, and floored the punk with a flying fist. Rolling over him, she bowled over two psychopaths, ploughed past a maniac, and shoved an actually-quite-stable leather fetishist into the screaming mob below.
"After her!" yelled someone.
She ran. Men got in her way. They died.
"Long strides," she panted, skipping over an alley, "distance, that's the key." She landed hard on an aluminium roof. Clumsy boots clattered after her, followed by the screams of those who didn't make the jump. She chucked a handful of knives over her back with her free hand, and smiled (just a little bit) when they hit. Another leg-stretching leap. "Only two on this roof," she noted, as she spun through them. "I must be losing them!" She sprinted up a long, steep incline, leaned forward, tensed herself, and jumped.
It was a magnificent leap. The shouts of the mob fell away. The night wind whistled through her hair, and chilled her aching limbs. The stars rushed towards her — why, she could almost touch them, it seemed! Giddy with adrenaline, she laughed, just once.
Dark clouds parted. Pale, cold light washed over a forest of trees far below. A river of black glass sparkled in its midst.
"Huh," she thought. "No building. Well. How about that."
She screamed. A lot.
The night wind roared past, and tore at her cloak. She tried to remember what her first instructor had told her about falling off cliffs. "Ah, yes," she recalled. "'Don't.' Simple, straightforward, and useless, like all his advice. No wonder I killed him."
The man had, however, taught her to disassociate her mind from her body in times of great strife, to see the battle with a tranquil eye, unclouded by fear, pain, or passion. She did this now. "Okay, Chloe," she thought, as she continued screaming, "this looks bad, but you can do this. Ready? Here's the plan: you "
She crashed through the canopy, snapped through some branches, and hit the river's surface like a bomb.
"…Close enough," she thought.
(Footnotes)
1. Yes.
2. "Huzzah!" thought the mouse.
3. People used to ask Brutus about what happened that fateful evening when he was locked in the zoo's crocodile exhibit with nothing but a pair of salami underpants for protection. They died. Those that asked about the underpants were quietly introduced to a clandestine purveyor of edible undergarments, and then died.
4. "Aww…" thought the mouse.
