Free Skarzy by Shane Jeffery

 
    1
     
    Skarzy – killer – just starting
running when the sirens went up. The others were shouting and swearing –
tossing bottles and cans and fuck whatever else when they saw him go by.
    “Skarzy – you
chickenshit – get back here!”
    Skarzy was
laughing now. It’d been a while since he’d had a good run. He’d been meaning to
start jogging again – start jogging start eating healthy – start going about it
the good way. Hell, last Tuesday he almost did. Stood himself right outside the
gym and bought himself a bottle of sports water. But then Lucy called his
mobile. And he fucking bent for her.
    Skarzy stopped
on the bridge. Put his hand on the dark green railing. It was cold. The air and
everything. The cars and the streetlights. The puddles and the moon. It was
cold alright. A cold summer night. They were the best.
    He looked
back. Some of them were chasing him.
    Lucy was
chasing him.
    “Skarzy – you
fucking fuck – I’ll BURN YOU!”
    Her foot
landed in the wrong puddle and she tripped. The others stopped to help her up.
And Skarzy laughed. He laughed so hard.
    He picked up
his pace again.
    What time was
it?
    He checked his
phone. Nine forty five.
    Still plenty
of trains going on now. And the tracks weren’t far from here. He could see them
over the bridge.
    Skarzy ran.
While running he checked his pockets.
    He had dropped
something. He hoped it wasn’t his wallet.
    The cigarettes
were there …the wallet too. And his phone.
    What was it
he’d dropped?
    He took his
hands out of the jumper and touched his jeans.
    Yuck. The
blade was still there. The curry muncher’s blood was seeping into his pants.
    Wait. Ouch…
    That’s my
blood.
    Skarzy stopped
at the intersection, wincing in pain. He took the knife out hesitantly and
dropped it on the pavement. It made a thank sound.
    There was dark
red blood in his pocket. The blade had cut him while he’d run.
    But it didn’t
hurt. At least not yet.
    Skarzy belted
the traffic light buzzer (clink, clink, clink, clink, clink) and looked
back for the others. They were still there, at the start of the bridge. The
traffic drowned out their screams.
    Once it went green, Skarzy tore across
the road and pain shot up his right leg.
    “Aaargggh!!!”
    A passing man
imitated him (Aaargggh!!!) but Skarzy didn’t look twice. He hurried onto
the other side of the road clutching the leg bitterly, limping. He checked his
pockets again for the thing he lost, but found it all there again, with some
relief.
    By the time he
reached the corner, Lucy and two of the others had made it to the intersection,
and were looking about. They couldn’t yet see him.
    Skarzy turned
around the corner and marched onto the brown gravel leading up to the tracks.
He followed on to the ramp and pulled back the glass door. There was no one in
the station office.
    The blood was
gushing about now in his pants. If he stopped for just a moment it would drip
down his legs.
    “Aaargh…”
    He looked
about for a newspaper, something to cover the blood, a magazine…
    No, that
wouldn’t do.
    He put it down
and spun deliriously about in the office.
    “The next
train to depart from platform one will be the 10.04 service stopping all stations
to Frankston…”
    Skarzy looked
up at the white analogue clock mounted on the wall.
    He still had
ten minutes.
    Blindly he
took the magazine off the bench again and opened the door to the platform. He
looked to either side.
    Across on the
other platform there was a young man with stringy blond hair sitting hunched
over; a cigarette in his mouth; a bicycle by his side. He hadn’t seen Skarzy
yet but…
    Oh shit.
    THEY’RE GONNA
COME STRAIGHT HERE.
    Panicking, he
hobbled over to the public toilet, pulled back the handle and rushed inside. It
went back with a wallop and Skarzy’s face screwed up in frightful agony,
fumbling his way into the dank pit. There were three cubicles. He reached for
the last one, and locked himself inside. He dropped the magazine