Fear the Night

Feeling better, the Sniper continued to walk, careful not to listen to the interior voice shouting for him to run, to flee for safety. It was fight or flight. And this was hardly the time or place to fight.

Then he heard another voice. An announcement on the public address system saying that beginning immediately, subway service would be temporarily suspended for a police action. The crowd groaned collectively, but they kept moving. They’d been through these things before and knew that service might resume within a few minutes. It wasn’t yet time to change their plans, to consider returning to the surface for alternate transportation.

The Sniper hunched his shoulders. Now it was almost impossible not to break into a run. His back was alive with nerves and tense muscles, bracing for a bullet. A bullet from Repetto. He walked on. He was almost to the concrete steps that led to the surface and the concealing night.

The station was too warm and he was perspiring heavily. So much so that a few of the people walking past glanced at him curiously. One woman even hesitated and seemed to consider asking if he was all right. But when she noticed his ragged clothes, what he was, what he wasn’t, she hurried on her way.

He made his legs move with great conscious effort, one step, the next, another. . The rifle beneath his coat was bumping his right leg painfully, and it was all he could do not to let it alter the rhythm of his gait and draw attention.

Almost to the stairs.

Almost to the cool, safe night.

Passing faces. . still the same. . Repetto close behind. .

Almost to the stairs.

Bobby was seated with his back against a steel support, facing the tracks so he wouldn’t be noticeable. He’d come to the Fifty-third and Third stop because it was one of the busiest, and he was desolate and broke. Because of the Night Sniper, there were fewer and fewer places in the city that were crowded after dark. The Sniper was bad for business, all right, from Wall Street all the way down to people like Bobby, who begged a meager living in the streets.

His illicit panhandling in the subway stop had netted him six dollars and seventy cents. Not much, but something. After ditching the stolen cell phone and giving up on trying to get the police to believe him, Bobby had walked most of the way across town. He was exhausted.

He heard the announcement about the subway system standing down for a police action. It didn’t matter much to him. There must have been some kind of emergency, a heart attack, a murder, some poor soul falling onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. He rested the back of his head against cool steel and sighed. None of it seemed worth worrying about now, or even thinking about. He had no plans beyond the moment.

That was when he happened to glance down the platform and see the homeless man he’d been following earlier that evening. The man who didn’t belong.

Bobby struggled to his feet and limped after him, his gaze fixed on the figure in the long tattered coat. The man wasn’t exactly hurrying, but he was still walking faster than anyone else on the platform.

Suddenly Bobby wondered if the man was real. Or even if he was real, was it the same man? After all, this time he’d only seen him from behind.

“Hey!”

The shout had hurt Bobby’s throat. He coughed and tried again. “Hey! Hey, bro!”

But the man hadn’t heard him over the repetitious public address announcement about the subway system being temporarily shut down.

Or had he heard? He was walking faster now.

He was running.

Bobby began to run after him. The hurrying man wasn’t going to escape. Not this time.

The Night Sniper heard the voice calling behind him. He couldn’t be sure if it was meant for him.

Even as he made up his mind that he was close enough to the exit to make a run for it, he was sprinting. His right arm held the concealed rifle tight to his body, while his left swung to keep his balance and to intimidate or knock aside anyone blocking his way. He pushed past a man strolling and reading a paper, elbowed aside a woman walking with her head down and dragging a small suitcase on wheels.

He was going to make it. He was sure now he was going to make it!

At first he didn’t notice the uniformed cop who came down the steps and was striding toward him.

When he did see him, there was no question in the Night Sniper’s mind. No hesitation.

He smoothly swung the rifle out from beneath his coat, aimed, and fired at the blue uniform.

Repetto heard the shot and whirled toward its source. At the crack of the rifle, everyone on the platform had dropped low or run for cover, so there was nothing to obstruct his view of a uniformed cop lurching along and pointing toward a hunched, hurrying figure in ragged clothes, a long coat and worn baseball cap. The cop stumbled and fell. The hurrying, hunched figure turned, and Repetto saw the rifle swinging up from beneath the coat to point at him.

A bullet snapped past Repetto’s ear as he struggled to unholster his revolver. His hands, his fingers, felt clumsy and insensitive. He seemed to be in a different, slower time frame than the man with the rifle.

Another shot-not as loud.

The wounded cop was sitting up, firing his 9mm at the Sniper. The gun was bucking in his hand.

Suddenly realizing he was in a cross fire, the Sniper leaped from the platform onto the tracks and sprinted toward the adjacent platform for trains running the opposite direction.

A play of light and press of wind, and Repetto realized a train was roaring in from that direction on momentum, trying to make its last stop as the system shut down.

He realized it was a break for the Sniper. If he made it to the opposite platform, he’d be on the other side of the incoming train and could make his getaway.

And he was going to make it.

Not only that, he was on a lower plane now and Repetto couldn’t get a bead on him through the people lying and kneeling on the platform. Both he and the wounded cop had stopped shooting. There was no choice. Repetto had completely lost sight of the Sniper now.

The bastard was going to make it!

The Sniper knew he had it timed. As he bolted to cross in front of the oncoming train, he paused and turned to send a final bullet in the direction of Repetto, so he’d duck his head and not make a lucky shot with a handgun from that distance.

Simple risk management. How he’d survived for so long and would continue to survive and taunt his pursuers.

The rifle cracked. No chance of actually hitting Repetto, but that wasn’t the purpose of the shot. The Sniper saw Repetto lower his handgun and duck, as if on cue.

No, on cue. It was the Sniper directing this scene.

Seeing Repetto, seeing the oncoming train, seeing everything, he spun back around, lowering the rifle, and took a few confident strides, knowing his timing was perfect.

“You! Hey, bro!”

The voice again. Not a cop. Not “Hey, bro!”

The Sniper turned his head and saw a ragged homeless man. A freak, an outcast, but someone vaguely and achingly familiar.

“Hey, bro! Brother!”

Brother? Who was he?

The man raised an arm, and at first the Sniper thought he might be aiming a gun at him. But the man’s hand was empty. He simply stretched out his arm and spread his fingers wide, as if trying to reach across time and distance and touch him. As if trying to make any kind of human contact.

He did touch something.

The Sniper felt it in his heart, in his core.