Free D by George Right

lost all his newly found calmness, plaintively exclaimed.
    "To relieve you of it," repeated the Negro, taking one more step towards him, and Logan understood that "it" meant not his trouble, but his leg.
    There was not the slightest chance of releasing himself in the remaining seconds. But when the driver had already raised his weapon, Tony seized the largest piece of asphalt and with all his might threw it right in the terrible white-black face.
    The sound of the blow turned into a wet crunch. The jerked back and fell, hitting his head against the edge of the opened truck door (it slammed with a scratch)–and then finally tumbled down on the asphalt, still clutching his hatchet. Logan heard a new crunch and at first thought that it was one more sound of a breaking skull. But then he saw a new crack that ripped the asphalt from the edge of the hole into which Tony had slumped to the front wheels of the truck, having passed under the driver's motionlessly stiffened body.
    And in the following instant something moved under the asphalt, heavily rolling towards the vehicle–or, maybe, towards the bald head from which, probably, blood exuded? Tony felt the grasp on his ankle weakened. Having gathered all his strength, he jerked once again–and his right leg broke loose with a viscous damp sucking sound. Without a shoe and all bedaubed with mud, but those were insignificant details. Logan jumped up and rushed farther along the street. He did not even try to pick up the post man's hatchet (let alone getting behind the wheel of his truck), as he was not sure at all that the asphalt under him wouldn't break again.
    Or that this guy won't come to senses at the most inoppor tune moment as always happens in movies.
    "Well, it's unlikely," Tony told himself (while still main taining his pace). "His skull was broken in two places at least, and however sturdy he seemed..."
    A familiar scratch came from behind. And then–a door slam.
    Tony looked back over his in shoulder in panic and saw headlights again. Actually, they were not switched off even when the truck was standing. But now... they, seemingly, were approaching again.
    Logan ran to the nearest house and hastily tugged at the door handle. Screws pulled from the mouldering wood, leaving the handle in his hands. The door had been locked. Having rejec ted his "trophy," as useless as a weapon, Tony rushed off farther along the street. How many seconds are left to him?
    From the fog a traffic sign appeared. A rhombus with an inscription "DEAD END." Holy crap!
    However, he guessed there was a certain extense of free space beyond the sign. While it still could be nothing. There could be a fence blocking his path...
    Without stopping, he threw one more glance back. The headlights were definitely closer. Tony again looked forward and saw a metal fence. But, no, it was not too high. And the main thing–there was a semicircular gate in it and it was open. And beyond the gate something like a town in miniature appeared in the fog: rows of low stone structures stretching into the gloom and silent pale figures erect between them...
    Crypts. Tombstones. Monuments.
    If this nightmare were in Manhattan, Tony remembered, south of City Hall would be the Trinity Episcopal Church cemetery–the only one active on the island. But it is is apparently much closer and very small, not comparable to this huge necro polis lost in the fog. Here, perhaps, it is not hard to lose one's way, especially at night... And why is the cemetery open at night? Though it is, of course, good that it is open, considering the vehicle which has almost overtaken him already... But still, though Tony did not consider himself superstitious, he, as well as the majority of people, somehow did not find the idea of night visits to cemeteries appealing. Especially–after everything that has already happened this night.
    Here truly–dead end. Tony thought again about the literal meaning of this ordinary expression.
    And, having run