Free Desperate Measures by David R. Morrell

scraped his hands. The fir tree smell of turpentine assaulted his nostrils. He climbed faster.
    “I hear him!”
    Across from the top of the wall, Pittman reached out along a branch, let his legs fall away from the tree trunk, and inched
     hand over hand toward the wall. The branch dipped from his weight. Dangling, he kept shifting along. The bark cut deeper into
     his hands.
    “He’s close!”
    “Where?”
    Moisture dropped from the fir needles onto Pittman. Even greater moisture dropped from the branch to which he clung. Water
     cascaded onto the ground.
    “There!”
    “That tree!”
    Pittman’s shoes touched the top of the wall. He swung his legs toward it, felt a solid surface, no razor wire or chunks of
     glass along the top, and released his grip, sprawling on the top of the wall.
    The gunshot was deafening, the muzzle flash startlingly bright. A second shot was so dismaying that Pittman acted without
     thinking, flipping sideways off the top of the wall. Heart pounding, he dangled. The rough wall scraped against his overcoat.
     He didn’t know what was below him, but he heard one of his pursuers trying to climb the tree.
    Another man shouted, “Use the gate!”
    Pittman let go. His stomach swooped as he plummeted.

25
    Exhaling forcefully, Pittman struck the ground sooner than he anticipated. The ground was covered with grass, mushy from rain.
     He bent his knees, tucked in his elbows, dropped, and rolled, trying desperately to minimize the impact. That was the way
     a skydiver he had once interviewed had explained how parachutists landed when they were using conventional equipment. Bend,
     tuck, and roll.
    Pittman prayed it would work. If he sprained an ankle, or worse, he would be helpless when his pursuers searched this side
     of the wall. His only hope would be to hide. But where? As he had swung toward the top of the wall, his impression of the
     dark area behind it had been of unnerving open space.
    Fortunately he had an alternative to being forced to try to hide. Using the momentum of his roll, he surged to his feet. His
     hands stung. His knees felt sore. But that discomfort was irrelevant. What mattered was that his ankles supported him. His
     legs didn’t give out. He hadn’t sprained or broken anything.
    On the other side of the barrier, Pittman’s hunters cursed and ran. Noises in a tree suggested that one of them continued
     to climb toward the top of the wall.
    His chest heaving, Pittman charged forward. The murky lawn seemed to stretch on forever. In contrast with the estate from
     which he’d just escaped, there weren’t any shrubs. There were hardly any trees.
    What the hell
is
this place?
    It felt unnatural, eerie. It reminded him of a cemetery, but in the darkness, he didn’t bump into any tombstones. Racing through
     the drizzle, he noticed a light patch in the lawn ahead and used it as a destination. At once the ground gave away, a sharp
     slope that caused him to tumble in alarm, falling, rolling.
    He came to a stop on his back. The wind had been knocked from him. He breathed heavily, wiped wet sand from his face, and
     stood.
    Sand. That explained why this section of the ground had been pale. But why would… ?
    A tingle ran through him. My God, it’s a golf course. There’d been a sign when the taxi driver brought him into the subdivision: SAXON WOODS PARK AND GOLF CLUB.
    I’m in the open. If they start shooting again, there’s no cover.
    Then what are you hanging around for?
    As he oriented himself, making sure that he wasn’t running back toward the wall, he saw lights to his left. Specterlike, they
     emerged from the wall. Pittman had heard one of his pursuers talk about a gate. They’d reached it and come through. His first
     instinct was to conclude that they had found flashlights somewhere, probably from a shed near the gate. But there was something
     about the lights.
    The tingle that Pittman had felt when he realized that he was on a golf course now became a cold rush