Free Fall

*Explicit language and violence

The steady rhythm of the tires against tarmac had almost lulled me to sleep at precisely the wrong fucking time. Days I had been awake, dreaming of this moment. Terry should be about a mile away, ready to drop the spike strip. God these handcuffs. I could swear there was a groove melding into my bones where they sit. I suddenly remember how close I am and adrenaline begins coursing through my veins. Breathe deep. Composure. It could all count on this.

'You fucking idiots ready?' I yell through the small hatch. It slams shut, the police officers driving the transfer truck finally tired of my jeers. I wouldn't have stuck it on them quite so profoundly, if they weren't quite such power loving fools. Daily beatings, bribed by gangs, allowing all manner of evils, rape, drug dealing, murders to go unnoticed behind the walls as long as they got their share. Criminals. Sometimes I wondered who was worse, me or them. Then again, I'd never beaten someone who didn't deserve it, I'd never preyed on the weak. Ten million in diamonds, stashed away, never found, never again to be seen unless... Unless I actually pulled this off. With a life of petty crime they'd thrown the book at me, just as I pulled the job that would've let me leave it all behind. What was it they said about rest for the wicked? Fucking handcuffs. A bump in the road makes me think my time is upon me and I stand, only to realise they'd hit a pothole. The spikes come a second after and the truck instantly gains a foot of air, and so do I. Stars are all I see now. My head had crashed into the ceiling, the truck rolled. Once, twice, three - fuck I lose count and the stars ring around my vision again. After what feels like a day, silence. And then groans, my own mostly. My face is warm, covered in blood. No broken bones. This really could be my lucky day. The truck is upside down, and someone is running.

'You don't want to do this' a sorry, begging voice cries. Gunfire cracks through the night like a whip and is followed by more groans. More crisp shots ring clear - I'm regaining my senses now and kick at the back door of the truck limply.

'Fucking pigs' a low voice grumbles in the silence, followed by thudding footsteps. The back door swings clean open, and there he is. Terry is a mountain of a man, recently released. His long dark hair and beard meet my eyes briefly and then he shines a torch in my face.

'Holy shit are you alright?' he cries as I stumble out, barging past the twisted metal, into the still night air. It's clean, cold. I fall onto my back aching from the crash and look up. The moon and sky greet my eyes, trees swaying over and around the sight, tall trees. I hadn't seen them in five years. Stars even begin to come into focus. I laugh and then want to cry but stand up instead. The air is laced with freedom. I look at the cops strewn across the wreckage in pools of blood and feel a smugness entwined with faint guilt. Maybe these ones weren't so bad.

'Did you have to kill them?' I ask Terry. He looks at me blankly and then begins making his way towards the truck.

'Hurry up you fucking idiot' he says, his footsteps still somehow seeming to boom even against the tarmac. He was right; sentimentality had no place in these settings. I charge after him, into the truck's passenger seat slump down, woozy but alive with possibility. In the seat there are fresh clothes, I change quickly, ushering for Terry to give me my brown paper bag. ID, a wallet, knife, hand gun, a few grand in cash. I toss the orange jump suit into the ditch next to the truck and regain sense, taking a bottle of water and washing my face free from crimson with an old rag. Fucking idiot? Who was he talking to?

'Start the car then numbnuts' I say now a little breathless. Terry obliges, twisting the key only to hear the sorry sound of a flat battery. He tries again and again - I stare at him reaching for my knife without realising.

'A year waiting for this day and you pick me up in a broken down car? How fucking stupid are you?' I ask him, he looks at me ashamed and then fearfully at the knife. He's big, but I'm quick and he knows it. He's also one of my oldest friends.

'Hop out. We'll push this into the woods and go on foot, might be less detectable like that anyways. Only ten miles and we can catch a train' I say as the tension leaves my body. No time for panicking now. Terry obliges and we roll the car off a hill going into the dark woods around, hearing the silence of its fall for a second and then the crunch of it breaking into trees. I take up a light jog in the opposite direction and go off road, so does Terry. Our breath fogs and the moon hangs low and full overhead. Despite the circumstances I can't help but smile - freedom feels raw out here in the woods, the stars above, the endless possibility. The best and only possibility I'd known for the last five years was getting to my cell without getting stuck in the back with a ‘homemade’ blade over a look, a word, a pack of cigarettes. The leaves crunch underfoot and I smell rich earth, taking down deep breaths, relishing the moment. Terry grabs my shirt and pulls me to a halt, finger over his lips. The faint whirring of a chopper miles away rises through the stillness of the night.

‘Shit. We’ll have to take the long way through the deep woods. We need to stay under cover’ I say through gritted teeth. The mask of calm is starting to slip and I feel panic rise within me as I dart into the darkness. Terry senses this and hurtles through the trees like a madman, swiping at passing branches, his breathing becoming laboured. He just wants to be covered overhead, no sense of our journey present in his mind, no sense of direction. After several moments of this we are surrounded by darkness, no view of the sky. This means no way of knowing even a rough direction in relation to our trek. I call Terry to a halt, enough panicking. He doesn’t listen.

‘Calm down will you… you’re gonna run us into-’ the words are ripped clean from my mouth as Terry’s enormous silhouette falls into more darkness, a nothingness from below. His body is absorbed by this darkness and I hear no sign of a fall, no cries of pain.

‘Terry? Where have you gone you great sack of sh-’ I call after him before the darkness from below comes for me too.

I awake in drab, dampness. Water falls rhythmically from the ceiling of a cave, the smell of moss and wet stone meeting my nose. I look up and see mangled roots above me swaying in the wind, obscuring a soft early morning light. Shit. I must’ve fallen deep and been saved by the narrowness of the hole, cracking my head again as I landed. Strangely, no wounds, no pain. Even my head feels better, as if I have been placed here. Terry. I stand and for some reason sense a force watching me so I reach for my gun even though I am shrouded in darkness.

‘Terry what shit have you got us into now?’ I cry, my voice echoes with no response.

‘At least the chopper will have lost us… it’ll be like we vanished into thin air’ I say once again, somehow knowing he is already dead.

‘There is no Terry here. Just the bones of a weak animal of a man’ a voice booms. This is no man. Too deep, too resonant. I clutch my gun tightly as water continues to drip around me. I think about firing into the darkness and then stop myself. I could need these bullets.

‘Come out now you freak or I’ll shoot’ I say limply. The voice chuckles, the sound slithering all around me, as if the cave itself was laughing.

‘Your toys will do you no good’ it replies. Suddenly the oppressive darkness moves. A figure engulfed in shadow stands, the figure of something giant, draped in dark garments. The faint light piercing through the small hole above gives the only perspective and I fall backwards as the being places itself within it intentionally. A man of pale skin, ten times the size of an ordinary human. Its face is gaunt, smiling and hairless. It raises a hand, a hand that could grip my entire torso if it pleased, before slumping down in the half light before me. It's eating something. The mangled image of a human leg. It's Terry.

‘I looked into his soul. Dirty work. Gave up being human when he was a child. Some beasts have more dignity’’ the giant says, tossing Terry’s limb to the side. I cannot speak and consider turning the gun on myself for a flashing second.

‘Although he did have a lot of meat on his bones’

I find a surge of adrenaline and pick up my gun, my last cry before a certain death. I fire one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times. The bullets seem to hit the beast's robes like small pebbles being thrown by a child, dust slowly rising into the air. He looks inconvenienced.

‘Stings. I should kill you’ he replies. I stop firing and clutch my knife. He wont eat me without feeling it I say to myself, and to my own shock feeling tears welling up in my eyes. How unlucky can one man be?

‘What are you?’ I say in a husk. The beast smiles.

‘Your spirit remembers my kind. Your soul knows my kind. We walked the earth as your kings and gods some time ago, but… we couldn’t have predicted your greed. How fast you would multiply. Gods. How tragic that we were felled by our own worshippers, those who took what we showed them and wanted more’ the giant explains. He looks incredibly sad.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, let me leave’ I say quickly. The giant smiles again.

‘No. I’ll see your soul first’ the giant says, lifting a single thumb. It's as big as my leg and presses down on my very being, even though it is not touching me. He is unleashing some kind of dark force. The giant then tears downwards, opening my consciousness like a book. I stand firm and see my physical body come undone, only the light within me remaining.

‘Ah… now I see you. You seek a life of money, violence, coating yourself with it. Stealing. Gods, the stealing. How pathetic’ he says. I feel ashamed for some reason.

‘Under it all. You hate yourself, life, the nature of it. Maybe your only redeeming quality. The nature of what you have had to do to survive. Money comes not as a grasping of the material but something beyond that… ahh, yes. Freedom. You want freedom’

He releases me and I fall back into my skin in the dark cave.

I reach for my gun again but can’t pick it up.

‘DO NOT TOUCH IT’ the giant cries, the sound shuddering me through to the marrow. I fall backwards, just watching him. It may be time.

‘I will not kill you, simple man. You have a heart. That’s all. A heart. Every man used to have one. Now… only few’

The beastly man raises his palm towards me, sighing.

‘You have my watch. You shall make it to your heart's desire, something bound to the immaterial longing within you. You will go by nightfall and none shall stop you. I pardon this. Then, you are alone once more’

He waves his hand and the blackness of his cave engulfs my mind - I fall into it endlessly.

I awaken in the darkness, above ground. The moon hangs over me, guarding my soul. I clutch at my clothes - no wounds, my gun, gone, knife, gone. My ID and wallet remain, with the money. I stand and look around. The ground is open, void of any dark holes. God the sky. It’s so beautiful. I am very close to the station and I immediately take up a light jog, seeing the lights of it come into view. Once I break free from the treeline I slow to a calm walking pace and am soon upon the station. The platform is empty, void of workers and I use the machine to buy a one way ticket into the city. A train approaches and I board it, feeling weightless, feeling totally unseen. The diamonds are hours away. I’m out of the woods and freedom calls.