In Pursuit

Billy knew they were after him, he had done for a while now.

He could feel it in the way his bones shook with the vibrations of the cars that sped past him, he could smell it on the breath of strangers who stood a little too close and he could see it in the unknown eyes he met across crowded rooms, the eyes that had singled him out. Billy knew all of these things; he even knew when they'd come for him. Any day now, he told himself, tomorrow if not today, this evening if not this afternoon. What Billy didn't know was who it was that was after him, and that, Billy thought, may turn out to be the problem.

In the musty, forgotten alleyway in which he'd slept for the last two nights, ('That's one night too many,' he had said aloud to himself, kicking the dirty-red bricks in front of him in disgust and coughing at the resulting dust) Billy stood, hands at his sides and knees ever so slightly bent. He flicked a cigarette butt to the ground and slowly exhaled puffs of grey smoke in perfectly formed circles, staring down at the burning amber glow of the cigarette tip. He needed to think but he didn't have the time to think the way he wanted to. He needed to think properly, with full and unwavering concentration, and with a mind clear of all distractions, a freshly dusted chalkboard on which to inscribe his complex thoughts. If you didn't think properly then you might as well not think at all, in Billy's eyes. The plans you made would contain latent flaws, submerged under the torrent of ideas and thoughts that spring into consciousness in a random, unorganised way. The best thing to do, Billy thought, was to make time to think properly; it saves time in the long run, he told himself; the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.

Today though, time really was running out, and Billy knew he couldn't afford to stand in the alley amongst the numerous fag-ends much longer; he'd been there far too long already. Two days and two nights he'd spent in that deserted alleyway. It had long been abandoned, as had the decrepit and derelict buildings that surrounded and enclosed it on either side. The Dead Buildings, Billy called them. Skeletons of brick and stone where the windows were left glassless like uncovered, open wounds, and the rats and insects seeped out to face any intruders in that same unceasing movement as blood. Places like that gave Billy the creeps. He couldn't help wondering why the once-thriving, busy factories now stood so empty and forgotten, what secrets lay dormant within them and who took sanctuary in their hostile shells amongst the rats.

Billy couldn't bring himself to take refuge in the Dead Buildings, instead preferring to take a chance on the hidden streets and alleys between them. They were, he knew, a little more open and therefore unsafe than the Dead Buildings but all the same, Billy thought, you could see where you were in an alleyway, there were no hidden corners, no creaking doors and no quiescent rooms waiting to be awoken.

It wasn't like Billy to take risks, he couldn't afford to, but in this case the risk of an open alley was nothing compared to disturbing the Dead Buildings that had, save for the rats, been left in peace for decades. The costs did not, in this case, outweigh the benefits.

With a sudden jerk of the knees as if he'd been at the hands of a puppeteer, Billy sank to the floor. Disturbed by a loud shrieking noise overhead, he cowered against the dirty brick wall, sheltering his young face with strong, muscular forearms that bore the scars of months on the run. He stood that way for far longer than he needed to, but he refused to move before he was certain he wouldn't turn to find someone standing over him. With immense caution, he lowered his right arm just enough to allow his glazed blue-grey eyes to search the cemented ground beneath him for shadows. He found none, seeing only the damp and broken floor, each crack in the concrete leading into another, like the cobweb of lines and wrinkles that map an old and aged face. His eyes traced the trail of a particularly deep, prominent gorge that seemed to Billy to reach deep into the earth below. Thinking of the thousands of creatures small enough to take up home in such a narrow fracture, Billy found himself wishing that he too could disappear into it, hide away beneath the torrid, unrelenting world above. After taking one final look around him to reassure him of his isolation, he pressed one stained, bitten fingernail into the crevice at his feet. For a fleeting moment he imagined himself digging away incessantly at the crack, gouging it out, enlarging it enough for him to crawl inside. But the image was replaced almost immediately by one of a dark, spindly hand reaching out from the fissure, clawing at the ground above, clawing at him, an image so vivid, he found himself in absolutely no doubt that it was real.

With an agility he wasn't even aware he possessed, Billy jumped back from the outstretched hand and fell back against the worn, dilapidated brick behind him, grazing his back against its coarse texture and sending jolts of pain through his body, so severe and intense as to bring his mind sharply back into focus.

Steadying himself against the solid, unmoving stone behind him, Billy took two deep breaths, checked his surroundings for shadows once again, and slowly eased himself back to his feet. Unsure of what had just happened to him, what was real and what was fantasy, he held out his hands to see them shaking violently. To Billy, they didn't feel like his own hands. He was staring at them in disbelief as if they belonged to someone else, as if he was watching someone else's trembling frame and feeling someone else's attempts to wrestle back control of their shot, overpowering nerves.

He had never before found himself so far out of his own control; he couldn't contain his own flesh or stop the flood of emotions and panic that had overtook his body. It had gone too far, he thought, he'd been imprisoned by the Dead Buildings, encased in dingy, forgotten alleyways for long enough. It was time, Billy told himself, to move on. And that was it. No intense, concentrated thinking about where he would go next, what route to take, how best to leave the alley -- at night or in inconspicuous daylight. With the shadows, the skeletons, the rats and the outstretched claws still pulsing in his veins, Billy made a rash, impetuous decision for the first time in over seven and a half long, drawn-out months. Within moments he was gathering up the small collection of items he had on his property, stuffing his notebook and pen into the back pocket of light-khaki coloured combat style trousers in a such an unprecedented urgency that he kicked his half empty Marlboro packet under one of the disused, rotting cardboard boxes that had sheltered him for the previous two nights.

Without looking back to check for shadows, Billy turned from the alley to face the quiet road in front of him, tripping on the fractured concrete beneath his feet. He leapt forward in a vain attempt to shake off the fingers he could feel clawing at his ankles but turned to find nothing there. Running, with that previously unknown urgency that now consumed and drove him forward, Billy fled from the alleyway and into the world outside. Somewhere, beneath the throbbing panic flooding through his mind as he ran past the Dead Buildings, Billy couldn't help thinking to himself that the benefits of this decision would not outweigh the costs.