“Let go or we’ll both fall,” Jack shouted.
“Noooo!” Pritchard screamed, squeezing even tighter.
What was the matter with the man? Did he want to die? Jack could hardly breathe. His ribs felt as though they would snap if the pressure wasn’t eased. He had to get rid of the extra weight, and fast – or they would both fall to their doom.
Jack brought his knee up hard into Pritchard’s testicles, stunning him. The killer convulsed and let out a cry of pain. Jack kneed him again, harder, but the blow only connected with Pritchard’s inner thigh. He pulled his knee back for a third blow.
“No, please,” Pritchard pleaded in a hoarse voice.
Tyler felt a small twinge of satisfaction.
This is for what you did to my Kelly, you bastard.
As he lashed out, again and again, the rope swayed back and forth, gaining momentum. The supporting joist started shaking violently as its restraining bolts gave way. Brick dust began to rain down on them.
“Let…go…you…swine,” Tyler grunted between blows. Pritchard slid further down Jack’s body, and then onto his legs, at which point Tyler managed to knee him straight in the face. The blow jarred the killer’s head backwards and he slid all the way down to Tyler’s feet.
“NOOOOO!” he pleaded, bug-eyed. A trickle of blood had leaked from the corner of his mouth.
“I hope you…break…every bone…in your fucking body,” Jack said, finally kicking him away. He watched as the killer fell to the floor and landed in a crumpled heap on top of the dustbins. Pritchard sprawled forward and a small cloud of dust billowed around him like a miniature burst of nuclear fall-out, obscuring his body from view. Jack closed his eyes and drew in several deep breaths before lowering himself painfully down to ground level.
As Tyler’s feet touched the floor there was an ominous crack above him and the rope went slack in his hands. He looked up to see the pulley plummeting down towards him, dragging a huge timber joist behind it.
“Shit!” he said, instinctively diving to his left and curling into a foetal position. The metal landed on the exact spot he’d occupied a second before with a loud metallic clang. The joist made a much deeper noise, partially disintegrating as it hit. Dust and fragments of splintered wood rained down upon him.
When it stopped, Jack stood up, coughing. Without thinking, he started brushing at his clothes, which were white with dust. The pain in his hands was immediate and severe. Looking down he saw they had both sustained nasty friction burns. Gingerly flexing his hands, he walked over to the pile of debris the killer had landed on to see…
Nothing!
What the hell…?
The killer had gone. But how could that be? He had landed badly, and from that height…
Wait a minute; if I was twenty feet up and he was hanging from my feet then he was probably only about thirteen feet from the ground…
A fall from thirteen feet onto a bunch of dustbins was still risky, but it was far less likely to cause serious damage than a fall from twenty plus feet, unless you landed directly on your head, which the killer obviously hadn’t, or got yourself impaled, as the killer should have done but, again, clearly hadn’t. Even so, there was no way he should’ve been in a fit state to get up and run away. Jack shook his head in frustration. Now if that had been me instead of him…
He looked around frantically. The killer had to be nearby. Pace, time and distance dictated he couldn’t have gone any further than –
BANG!
A pair of swing doors in the opposite corner of the massive storage area slammed shut, producing an echo that resonated throughout the empty building. Jack immediately broke into a run, jumping over several of the dustbins and their recently spilled contents. He nimbly dodged bricks, loose floorboards and broken crates alike, his burning hands temporarily forgotten.
It took him six seconds to reach the thick, rubber swing doors. Without breaking his stride, he kicked them wide open and carried on through, throwing caution to the wind. Had he been going slower, he might have noticed the grime covered sign on the door that indicated he was heading towards a chemical storage area containing highly flammable materials.
Tyler found himself in a long downward sloping tunnel, which he figured ran all the way down to the river’s edge. A long way ahead, a weak beam of light reflected off the walls, bobbing up and down as the killer ran.
The son of a bitch had a torch!
Jack ran after him, taking full advantage of the killer’s light until it faded and disappeared around a right-angle bend. Without the benefit of the killer’s light to guide him, the passage quickly became as dark as the grave. In the few brief moments that the tunnel had been illuminated, he’d seen that several boxes and an old discarded trolley lay at various intervals in his path like an obstacle course. He cursed out loud and reluctantly slowed to negotiate the first of the hurdles.
He tried to regulate his breathing, but the stale air in the tunnel was thick with newly disturbed dust, making him cough uncontrollably.
Although he couldn’t see the killer anymore, he could still hear the steady patter of receding footsteps. The sound infuriated him.
He wondered just how long the tunnel was; it seemed to be going on forever. With one hand held out in front of his face, probing the way ahead, and the other touching the side of the wall for balance, he began to advance. His progress was painfully slow and soon the killer’s footsteps faded into silence.
He needed to go faster, but it was dangerous to run. Fuck it, life’s dangerous, he decided, angrily. Tyler began to jog.
