Each side of the city attracted different kinds of Runners and Hunters. But with one thing in common: both operated below the collective conscious. For most intents and purposes – invisible.
Everyone in this particular Run thought the gas lamps in this part of the city – east of the railway tracks that cut through the city’s center – made for the best ambience; the electric streetlights to the west side of the tracks were too garish. Too modern.
Henry and Milo sprinted side by side, two strips of black cut out of the fabric of the storm. Henry had brought a gun this time – to present a danger, keep interest up. Prevent boredom: Hunters’ flesh was not nearly as bullet-friendly as Runners’. Officially, Runners bringing weapons was intensely frowned upon, but certainly not unheard of. There were consequences, but you had to be caught to suffer them, so as long as you could manage to avoid that…
A shotgun blast cracked nearby. Three Hunters spread out, settled in behind dumpsters in the alleyway Milo and Henry had entered, coming in off a main street. The wind cut to a minimum here. Henry recognized the area – it was very near the same part of the city he’d fallen in last night. He and Milo hunkered down behind some trash bins, caught their breath, listened for movement from the dumpsters.
“Fuckers hemmed me in last night,” Henry whispered, pointing behind them to the corner where he’d gone down in a quickspray flash of red.
“Tired of the chase?” Milo said.
“Must have been, yeah. Though I like to think I provide a reasonable challenge, you know?”
Another shotgun blast crisped the night, lit up the graffiti-strewn brick walls around them.
“That’s why tonight,” Henry said, cocking his Magnum, “we piss them off a little.” He stood up fully, in plain sight, popped off a round in the direction of the closest dumpster, where one of the Hunters’ feet was visible through the blowing snow. Henry’s shot pulped it.
The Hunter fell to the side, propped against the wall. Screamed his lungs out. Henry ducked behind the trash can again, leaned to his right, just enough to see his target’s head through the heavy snow.
Fired.
A clump of bone and gristle slapped against the brick wall, silencing the screams.
Words of anger filtered out from behind the other two dumpsters. It was rare that the Runners fought back.
“Oh, shit. That did it,” Henry said.
A shotgun exploded from behind one of the dumpsters; machine gun fire opened up from behind the other. Wails of pain filled the thin spaces of silence between the metallic staccato.
Henry popped his head up quickly to see if he’d killed the Hunter or just badly wounded him. (He was only aiming to wound, but he might’ve fucked up, blown the guy’s whole head off.)
Five bullets from the machine gun fire whistled into his cranium. The first two slammed out the back, but the last three stuck hard. Two more sliced through his neck, butted up against several others already lodged there. Henry fell backward, exposed to the gunfire, unconscious. Four more bullets found their home in his chest as he lay there, then the firing stopped.
* * *
Milo swore and moved to pick Henry up.
The two Hunters ignored Milo and shuffled to the dumpster where their friend had fallen. Low, muffled curses whipped by wind found Milo’s ears.
The Hunters picked up their friend – each to an arm – and dragged him backward out of the alley, his booted feet leaving trails through the snow.
“Idiot,” Milo said. “Idiot with shit timing.” He hoisted Henry up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. A feeling of distinct unease swept through him, and he hoped like hell that Henry hadn’t killed the Hunter – that maybe by some miracle he was still alive, just very badly wounded.
Milo trudged through the deep snow of the alley, past the three dumpsters where the Hunters had been, walking in the grooves left by their boots. He squinted against the wind, was nearly blinded by the street lamp’s glaring reflection off the crisp, fresh snow. At the mouth of the alleyway, down and to his right, Milo spotted a dark shape, a man, lying on the ground, most of his head pulverized, a misshapen, bleeding lump in the darkness. Definitely dead.
Oh fuck, he thought. He looked up from the Hunter Henry had shot, saw the man’s two friends coming toward him. Scowls under hoods.
The closest one stopped in front of Milo, blocking his way; the other stood behind the first, at his shoulder, glaring, stonefaced. The first one spoke: “This ain’t how the game’s played, motherfucker.” He pointed to Henry, a deadweight sack slung over Milo’s shoulder, still out cold and leaving a trail of blood in the snow behind them: “He killed my friend; now I’ll kill his.”
“Whoa now, hang on a minute, fellas,” Milo said. “Henry was just trying to liven things up a little, you know? He didn’t mean to–”
Something metal glinted in the gaslight, catching Milo’s eye. He looked down. The Hunter had pulled a machete from a sheath.
Milo backed up a step, shook his head once.
The machete swung, sliced through air, through snowflakes, through Milo’s windpipe, vertebrae.
Three crumpled heaps, lying still in the dark. Bleeding.