"A Rescue" by Jackie D. Ozorio

A Rescue

I didn’t look too strange, covered head to toe in clothing. The only bare part of me was my face, as my neck was wrapped in a monochromatic scarf and my head hugged by a beanie. The mind within was in turmoil; only constant thoughts and images of pink bunnies and flying elephants were keeping this girl safe and sane.

Sirens whined over the grumble and bustle of the night traffic. Yes, they were for me.

I approached a crowd. I hate crowds. So many people, so many lives, so close and tight. I hugged myself and ducked in, trying to keep my face shielded. I wove and slid through gaps, under arms and raised shopping bags. I knew vaguely where I was going – but I’d never been in this part of town before. All I knew was that I was extremely close to where I had to go.

I glanced to the blue and red flashing lights for a moment too long. I collided with a young man. He reflexively grabbed me, accidentally brushing my cheek. I inhaled sharply, trying to stop the pending onslaught.

James Nicholson, twenty-three, out for dinner. Everything he was feeling, seeing, sensing, was transferred to my mind. I reeled and found myself flat on the ground, dizzy and rigid from the overload. Only for a moment. I scrambled to my feet and dodged the stunned man, and then realised the cops were pelting after me on foot. Fast.

I dashed across a road and was nearly flattened twice. A car squealed and slowed, and a truck swerved and missed me by an inch. It surely wasn’t luck, and I was losing energy.

Now! I didn’t miss the entrance because somehow I knew it was there. I zoomed into the doorway without missing a step. Up the stairs! Even though they were sheltered, the stairs were wet. I didn’t want to know why. The floorboards cracked and groaned under me, hiding nasty insects that skittered away. A door was at the end of the corridor. A single bulb dangled above, swinging gently.

All this time the police had been following – two had kept up.

‘Stop! We don’t want to hurt you!’

I didn’t turn. The strange aura that had drawn me here was choking me, dragging me forward even though I should have collapsed hours ago. I reached out for the doorknob. The police would have caught me then, had the doorknob, lock and all, not blown off the wooden frame at that very moment.

I squinted, shielding my eyes, but didn’t stop.

Multiple gunshots rang out. I was barrelling straight toward the gunman, and he was aiming at my head, but nothing hit me. I didn’t care; what was interested in was not this man, but what was behind him. I tackled him around his sweaty middle. He toppled from the impact, and I scooped up the child from behind him.

I whirled to face the police, this child settled comfortably on my hip. The gunman was kneeling, hands on his head. One policeman was approaching me, gun pointed at the ceiling. I backed up, breathing hard, sore all over. My job wasn’t over yet. The child turned those dark eyes on me and smiled, a sad but appreciative smile, and kissed my cheek. A thrill started in my chest; this little child’s touch didn’t flood me with images as other peoples’ did. The soft press of his lips was also oddly familiar – I’d definitely felt this kiss before, and not only on my cheek.

‘Now there,’ the policeman stammered, breaking me out of eye-lock with the small boy, and edging closer.

I pressed against cool glass and reaffirmed the child’s weight. He craned his neck up at me and blinked those soulful eyes. ‘Take us home,’ he whispered.

I nodded, though I didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. With my elbow, I bashed the pane. It didn’t break – just cracked. I bashed again, my elbow painfully bruised. This time the glass shattered, tinkling around us. The cop grabbed for me, but I saw him coming even with my eyes shut.

I threw myself at the window. Not out completely, but enough to be dangerous. The child clutched me, but made no sound. I rolled as the policeman’s hands slipped from around my arm. I found myself sitting awkwardly on a slanting window ledge, holding onto a child with one hand and gripping the window frame with the other.

‘I’ll jump!’ I screamed, and gave a pathetic sob as I realised the glass had sliced my hand open to the bone.

‘Easy!’ the cop pleaded. ‘Easy there!’

I edged away from the window, heading for the iron ladder close by. By now I was crying silent tears. Some trickled down onto the boy’s face. He looked up curiously and affectionately, and with a small thumb brushed a tear away.

‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered. That little sentence held such a gentle tenderness I was stumped for a moment. A child didn’t speak like that. A lover spoke like that.

I grabbed the wet ladder at the same time as another cop poked his head through a window further on and called out. I began to climb.

The roof was a desolate, concrete plain. The boy and I moved further into the middle, and knelt.

‘Here,’ he said, and poured a fistful of what seemed to be sand into my palm. ‘Ready?’

The police had arrived, and with a medical crew. I would have liked to stop and let them help, stop all the pain and madness. I wanted to sleep. But of course I couldn’t.

The child scattered his sand in a circle, and instructed me to do the same.

Kneeling in this circle – the cops a dozen feet away – the child grabbed my face and pressed our foreheads together.

‘Think of home,’ he hissed at me, and I did.

My world, as I knew it, spun away into nothingness.