OXYGEN PARK- A Novel

OXYGEN PARK

A NOVEL

STEPHEN P LEWIS

PART ONE: GETTING TO THE PARK

CHAPTER ONE: CAPTURE

Ray followed the kid’s fingers as they glided effortlessly over the keyboard. Moving at tremendous speed, they barely paused as they typed out command after command. Ray lost himself in the keystrokes and wished for a moment that he could be this guy. Beneath the mop of curly hair the kid muttered a profanity and then the moment passed, leaving Ray to look awkwardly at the cracks in the ceiling.

The keystrokes fired away again like a tiny machine gun, searching out the secrets of the code before him. From where Ray stood the kid seemed lost in the code but he was however intensely aware that his own time was ticking downwards.

“Almost there.” The kid mumbled, hanging on to the last syllable with great effort.

The screen began to flash erratically, as if it had a mind of its own. Ray saw a small bead of sweat glide neatly down the kids face. It reminded him of a droplet of fresh morning dew. Acting with great haste he typed in some access codes that were written in a small tattered notebook, and then snorted as the screen finally showed that he was in. The computer gave one last grudging sound before finally spitting out the full criminal history of Raymond B Wilkes.

Ray breathed in deeply, dragging the cold air-conditioned air over his teeth and he realised that in that instant that he was only seconds away from a safe new life.

“You’re gonna owe me after this one, my man.” the kid murmured softly.

“Don’t worry. When this is all over I’ll get you whatever you want.” Ray ventured.

“Cash works for me, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure whatever you want.” Ray answered softly. He could already feel the bulge of notes inside his front pocket. They had agreed on the price at a previous meeting.

The kid ran his finger expertly down the corner of the screen searching out the edit commands to prepare the file for deletion.

“In that case Mr Wilkes, prepare to be a free man”. He poised his finger over the position of the enter key.

Suddenly the room exploded in a flash of blinding white light. Both Ray and the kid were flung away from the monitor and across the room. Ray fell awkwardly on his shoulder, the fall stealing the breath away from him. The room was much darker now and Ray couldn’t seem to adjust to anything. His vision blurred from the flash and he could taste the smoke in the back of his mouth.

As his vision began to come back into focus he heard the noise of people breaking in through the door to his right. He felt lost and disorientated as a thick cloud of smoke circled the room. Then from out of the smoke he spotted an army of troops dressed in the familiar dark black colours of the police.

Ray’s chest hurt. Everything seemed to pound and thick smoke seemed to burn through his eyes no matter how much he blinked. He could see that the monitor on the desk was on its side but still intact. Its bright screen called him through the smoke filled room, offering salvation.

He felt weight on his legs and as he glanced down he discovered that they were pinned beneath the rubble of what was left of the wall. Rolling and kicking with every ounce of energy that he could muster, he began to work the rubble from off of his legs.

Glancing around as best he could through the smoke he saw the police had begun to cautiously enter the room through what was left of the door. Ray could barely make out the jagged edges of what remained of the shattered door frame. It reminded him of shark’s teeth. He pulled himself onto his stomach and began to struggle through the debris of the room. He used his arms to pull himself closer to the monitor. The ringing in his ears grew louder as the monitor became steadily close. From the pit of his stomach Ray fought the urge to throw up.

His head felt soft and groggy, but instead of letting himself fall into the comfort of unconsciousness he concentrated on the computer screen. Trying to block out everything except the giant cyclops eye through the smoke, he couldn’t give in now he thought. I’m too damn close.

With only five feet between himself and the computer Ray held his breath as he felt the terror of the police closing in.

He pulled himself closer. Only four feet now.

Three feet. Ray sighted the enter key, shining like a beacon through the smoke, calling to him.

Two feet remained. Time seemed to lengthen and Ray found himself wrestling with consciousness again.

One foot. Using his last bit of strength he clawed his way up the computer table and reached out to hit the enter key.

Suddenly his wrist exploded in a sea of pain as a police boot came down hard on it. All his body could do in reflex was to fall to the ground and roll onto his back like a turtle. His eyes closed tightly as it took in the immense pain.

He could hear the sounds of someone above him and it forced him to slowly open his eyes. He could see the uniformed figure looming over him. The smoke from the explosion had begun to be sucked out through the hole in the door. Ray could see that the cop had his face covered with a gas mask and from it came a mechanised voice.

“You are under arrest.”

As the cop leaned in towards him, Ray dipped his head to the right and saw the kid lying silently on the floor beside him. A large chunk of the steel door hung out of his neck. Ray was no doctor but he could tell that the kid wasn’t going to be punching anymore keys in the future.

Rolling his head back up again, the cop came into view. He raised his boot and let it fall sharply into the side of Ray’s face. The world wobbled precariously for a second, slipping in and out of shades of grey. He could taste the coppery blood running down his tongue. In the movies one punch takes someone out, but this was not a movie and as Ray saw other cops coming towards him he felt more kicks rain down on him. For a terrible moment he felt pain rush to every corner of his body. Then finally he felt nothing.

CHAPTER TWO: SOCIETY 2082

In the year 2064 the world’s legal system began to fail. One by one the most powerful countries in the world started to unravel into chaos. It had become obvious that criminals were no longer afraid of the penalties that the lawmakers imposed. Prisons were overcrowded, and corruption and bribery a way of life. The chasm between rich and poor could no longer be denied. The poor wanted more and were no longer prepared to believe the lie that had been fed to them for so many years. Access to the internet meant that people could vent their frustrations and like a giant tidal wave people began to take what they wanted with little disregard of the consequences. So what if they were sent to prison for a few years, sometimes it was better than what was on the outside anyway. Financial crisis after financial crisis had crippled governments and holding a full time job was almost like a luxury these days.

In the summer of 2064 the world seemed on the brink of disaster. As if it were a dam that was threatening to burst, it felt like a forgone conclusion that the world would fall into total anarchy. Dramatic overpopulation meant that people competed for limited resources like never before and an incredible sense of desperation clung in the air all of the time. But then from somewhere out of this mess came a man who preached a message. A message of strength and salvation. He used the media and the web to spread his plan and gathered a wave of support from all levels of society in what seemed like a moment. That man was called Andrew Kernison.

Kernison came from a family of politicians and as such knew the power of a simple idea spread widely. Kernison was fearful of the world’s decline but realised that the old way of locking people up and then letting them out again to do the same things a few years later had gone by the way of the dinosaurs. Softly spoken, he was more like Martin Luther King than Muhammad Ali. Choosing to use his language to lure his opponents in and then expose their hypocrisies to a waiting world. Kernison was not a perfect man but he was smart enough to know the value in being straightforward so he became one of the few politicians that couldn’t be brought, and couldn’t be bribed. He argued as if he were a General, always aware of his strengths and weaknesses. In a few short years came to earn the respect and more importantly the ears of the people who truly had power in this world.

In February of 2066 he decided to launch upon the world his idea of the ultimate crime deterrent, and because of his good standing in the political world he was able to discuss it with the world’s most senior leaders.

The idea was radical at the time. Crime was so out of control that the world’s leaders accepted it, hungry for a real solution to escape the wave of brutality. Like a master chess player Kernison had been careful to position all of his pieces in an undefeatable position first before he truly showed his play. The top nations adopted the new law and slowly society began to change. It did not change back to the way it was, as those times were now ghosts but law and order did gradually return.

Kernison’s idea was as simple as it was brilliant for the time. To prevent crime there had to be a powerful and unavoidable deterrent. It needed to stop crime at the root. Halt kids from doing small crimes that would one day escalate into larger crimes as adults. There needed to be a way to stop people in their tracks and think about the risks vs rewards from any action that they may take.

He proposed that everyone be given a quota of three crimes. A penalty of death was imposed for anyone that exceeded their quota. His reasoning was that if anyone broke the law more than three times, no matter how significantly, then they were repeat criminals. They were just as likely to break the law again and again as crime had become a way of life to them.

For the plan to work effectively everyone was given a clean record and past crimes or incarceration did not matter, yet within one year of the program’s operation almost 4 million people had breached the three crime limit and had been executed. The crime rate started to drop drastically after the first year and people started to realise the consequences of their actions.

People called it the Baseball Law because everybody had three strikes and then they were out. There was pressure from all sides of politics to water down the law but no one could argue against the law’s effectiveness. After the first year the crime rate dropped significantly and then as if by some miracle, the trend continued each year until there were proportionally very few executions each year. There were still jails that held prisoners that had only done one or two crimes but these too were emptier than they had ever been.

Kernison was hailed a hero and a true visionary. His popularity increased as the world’s crime rate decreased and the sense of desperation seemed to disappear. Over the next few years Kernison went on to become one of the world’s greatest leaders and as he got older, a statesman that was called on by other leaders for his straightforward advice.

The world settled back to its relatively crime free existence. The majority of the people were happy.

CHAPTER THREE: INTO THE PARK

Wilkes sat handcuffed in the back of the prison van like a sardine in a can. He was clothed only in a thin pair of grey prison fatigues. Not very much money was spent on those that had broken the Baseball Law. The van was occupied by only one other prisoner and two armed prison guards, who sat on the hard wooden bench opposite. Wilkes let his face slide into a worried frown as he immersed himself in a state of self-pity. He had been so close to freedom, and that pain seemed to sting worse that the physical wounds on his face.

He had been trying to erase his criminal record when he had been captured. If he had had one second more and been able to press the enter button his entire criminal past would have been erased forever. The kid had managed to hack the core of the criminal database from which all information was processed. If that had been deleted even the backups would have erased before anyone could have saved the data. The kid had used a Trojan horse program that weeded out every existence of his record from the criminal database, the courts and police records and even media, to delete any record of criminal activity, effectively cleaning Ray’s previous crimes in a matter of seconds.

Ray had decided that it was necessary to risk deleting his record as he already had two crimes hanging over his head. He was a cautious man as a rule and found that living his life so close to a dangerous precipice was almost impossible. He could no longer sleep properly thinking that if he had just one more infringement for anything he would be put to death. He convinced himself that a man should not have to live this way.

Through a friend he had managed to track down the kid who told him that he could erase his record for a price. The price was high but Ray felt that it was worth it. He was told that the kid had finally cracked the codes a month or so back and had helped two other people delete their full records. There were risks of course but if it succeeded Ray would be free to resume his life and not have a sentence of death hanging over his head. Now he had been caught trying to mess with his records and this was a serious crime in itself.

With the suddenness of a freight train his quota had been exceeded and now he was heading for the courtroom where he would assuredly be given the death penalty. This last thought crashed over him like a heavy wave from a distant ocean.

His black and swollen eyes glanced nervously around the prison truck. He felt like a dog that had been beaten too much and let his head hang without focusing his eyes on anything or anyone.

He had regained consciousness only a few minutes before, in the back of the truck. A trickle of blood still remained wet in the corner of his mouth and he could taste the coppery flavour of blood in his mouth. Using the sleeve of his paper thin uniform he dabbed at it trying to stop the flow. He was surprised at how much his face felt swollen and painful to touch. His eye socket felt incredibly sore as if something wasn’t quite right about it and his jaw still felt numb on his right side. He hoped that someone would look at it when they next stopped. Did that mean that he hadn’t fully given up Ray thought? The notion made him sit a little taller on the bench.

It wouldn’t be long until it was all over now, Ray though. The dark contemplations quickly took over his thoughts again. Justice worked fast these days. Years ago it was decided that once a person was found guilty of three crimes that the sentences should be carried out with the greatest of speed so as to act as a further deterrent. It also alleviated a lengthy appeal process. Rarely did a politician intercede in changing a sentence because they all knew that it was political suicide to do so. Ray calculated that in less than a month he would be stone cold dead.

Ray’s eyes swung around the van again, taking in his surroundings, until they silently fell on the large gun in the guard opposite’s gun belt.

“Go ahead.” The guard mocked in a low cruel voice, bringing him out of his nervous trance.

“What?” Ray asked almost by impulse. His eyes were stuck like glue on the smooth curvature of the gun’s huge metal handle.

“Go for it, if you think you can make It.” said the guard. Ray still couldn’t find the strength to look him in the face but saw that the guard’s hands slipped to the gun holster where he unclipped the safety catch that held the gun in place.

As if he had been hit in the head again, Ray abruptly came to the meaning of the guard’s request. He glanced away embarrassed as if he was a child caught cheating in a school test. Thoughts of his impending trial and execution vaporised temporarily from his mind.

“Come on. You can take me.” The guard mocked.

Ray shifted in his seat uncomfortably, feeling himself turning red in front of the guards and the other prisoner. He shot a quick glance to the man sitting next to him. Although Ray didn’t know the other blond haired prisoner, he felt a sense of comradeship with him and his blushing embarrassed him.

Both of the guards sitting opposite lifted their heads to the roof and let out a chuckle. They both visibly relaxed a little as the tension in the air began to clear.

Arnold Dowe watched in silent hatred as the two guards made fun of the other prisoner. The guard opposite him threw his head back laughing. He laughed hard enough that Dowe could see the folds of fat around his stomach bounce up and down. “How I would love to smash his laughing head in.” Dowe thought quietly. He sat on his rage in the same way that he sat on the hard wooden bench, pushing the pain down into the pit of his stomach like a lead ball.

He shifted his focus to the other guard and noticed that he had foolishly left the safety catch unclipped on his gun belt. It called to him like the siren’s song.

Dowe had never really been much of an analytical person, and if anyone had bothered to test him in his twenty four short years they would not have been too surprised to find that Dowe has some real impulse control issues. In fact it was surprising that Dowe had managed to stay walking around in the free world for as long as he had. Dowe found out years ago that if you walked around with a smile on your face the world seemed to cut you some slack. Dowe believed that his first instinct was the right instinct and listening to his gut was his sole religion. A mixture of cunning and good fortune had kept him alive for this long, but like anything to do with luck, sooner or later it runs out.

So it was last night when he and his buddy Mike had pulled another warehouse job. In fact the warehouse job had been identical to the one they had done just over a month ago, right down to the exact same warehouse. They had cased it before the first job and felt that there was no reason to think that they would have installed extra security. Last time they had gotten away with two crates worth of watches and a couple of computers that they had managed to disconnect from an upstairs office. They had gotten a decent price for the watches. They weren’t flash but Mike’s connections preferred to sell things that were not too pricey anyway. They were taking pot luck at the warehouse in any case. Dowe had worked there as a packer a few months before and they seemed to have a varying array of different goods going in and out at various times. He had stuck around only long enough to see the layout from the inside and the locks on the windows and doors. Come lunch time Dowe was a ghost and he was gone before anyone even had time to check out his identity.

So last night they jimmied open an upstairs window and Mike had lifted Dowe’s bulky body up and through. Despite behind a large guy Dowe had a certain grace to his movements and he easily tumbled through the window, rolling down to the floor without hurting himself. He had paused for a moment on the cool concrete floor, checking out the non-existent sounds from within the warehouse. When he was satisfied that the coast was clear he stood up letting his eyes adjust to the light.

It took a few moments to register the fact that something was going on outside, as Dowe was focused on the job at hand. It slowly dawned on him that the commotion outside was getting louder. The roller door flew up and the warehouse came ablaze in a confusion of lights and bodies. Men dressed in black rushed in and he could hear the sounds of dogs barking outside. The men spotted him within seconds as Dowe tried to shield his eyes from the glaring overhead lights. The men came at him in a pincer movement forcing him back deeper into the warehouse with his back suddenly up against a solid wall. With nowhere to go and no weapon at hand a handful of men came at him and pushed him to the wall. As he struggled their hands gripped him like a vice and he felt a hard knee connect with his belly. It forced out the air and left him struggling to breath. The men then used their weight to force his hands behind his back and before he could even throw a few choice words at them they had him cable-tied and on his knees, prostrate before them.

Above the din of the barking dogs he could hear Mike fighting his own battle outside, but he didn’t have as much to lose as Dowe. Mike was only going to get a second strike. Dowe always thought that if it came to being arrested a third time he would go out in a blaze of glory. But he had been surprised and it had all gone down too fast. Now he was just a wheezing mess kneeling on the floor. This was three strikes and you’re out for Arnold Dowe.

Back in the prison van Dowe watched the guards with a calculating glance. He felt a little like a card counter at a Vegas hotel knowing that there was one lucky hand left in the shoe.

At the optimum moment Dowe lunged forward at the guard and his gun. The element of surprise was with him this time. Since he had been locked away in the back of this van he had felt helpless, now with this one move he felt a sense of fulfilment flooding through him again. He knew that whatever dark cell Mike was sitting in now, he would have been impressed.

Without the need to rationalise his movements Dowe hit the guard with the speed of a viper. Although he was still chained at the wrists he managed to put the full force of his body behind the blitzkrieg attack. Both guards seem to have their attention on the prisoner that was bleeding from the face.

He flung open his hands at the manacled wrists like he was opening a book and grasped the butt of the gun as best he could, but he found that getting the gun out of the holster was a lot more difficult than he imagined. His mind registered that it was something about the angle that he was trying to pull it out. He began to twist rather than pull, his mind now working like a feverish animal. Just as the guards began to recover and react to his attack the gun magically plopped into his hands. He felt the weight of the weapon, and it felt like control.

With the skill of an acrobat Dowe shifted his body weight and sent the guard falling to the floor between him. The other guard was by now starting to rise and reach for his own gun. He seemed to be having the same problem that Dowe had in extracting his weapon. Dowe stepped over the fallen guard who now rolling over to his side on the vans floor. He closed the distance between him and the other guard just as the uniformed man managed to draw his gun. Dowe raised his shackled hands and calmly aimed his gun at the guard chest. Then he expertly fired off two shots at him from only a metre away.

The guard hit the back of the van and looked as if he had been chopped in two from the shots. They didn’t make a big hole going in but they certainly made a big hole going out. The guard managed to utter a strangled cry from what was left of his chest and sank to the floor. One of his hands fell forward and sank into his hollow chest. Time seemed to lengthen as if he was moving in slow motion. He could feel his beating chest from beneath his prison uniform.

The gunshots echoed off the prison van wall. Dowe had shot guns before but never in such a confined space. He was amazed at how loud it actually was. His ears were ringing as if a million bees had been set loose around him. He could also smell the acidic smoke from the gun. All of his senses seemed heightened giving Dowe a feeling of immense energy.

He then remembered the first guard who he had stepped over. He was behind him now and needed to be controlled. Acting quickly he started to spin around towards the other guard. As quickly as his eyes could take it in, he realised why the first guard had been rolling over to his side when he had knocked him down. From somewhere around his ankle the guard had produced another gun, smaller than the first but appearing just as deadly. Dowe had turned his body around but his arms and therefore the gun seemed to be floating well behind. The guard had levelled his gun directly at Dowe’s face. He was transfixed by the sight of the barrel pointing straight at him and he could see from behind the gun that the guard’s face was in a tight grimace, half smile, and half fear. Dowe had no doubt that the guard had no intention of bringing him in alive. He felt like a deer in headlights without the power to move or turn the rest of his body. He stood rooted in one spot awaiting his fate.

For the briefest moment Dowe thought, ” It’s over.”

It looked like Dowe would never get to see his day in court after all. He prepared for the pain of the bullet ripping open his face.

The guard’s face turned from a gruesome smile to something that looked more like bewilderment. Then he fell forward into Dowe’s body, his legs giving way beneath him.

“What’s going on?” Dowe though, as the guard collapsed to the floor.

Behind him the other prisoner stood. His hands clenched together to form one giant fist.

Before he knew it the other prisoner had sprung forward with blinding speed. At first Ray thought that he had just slipped off the seat because the ride was a little bumpy, but the sounds of the gunshots quickly dismissed that idea. He didn’t even have time to gasp in surprise when the guard’s blood sprayed up on him and flicked wickedly upon his prison uniform.

It took a moment to understand what was happening. He felt like he was on a roller-coaster of emotions in those few short moments. The other prisoner had stepped over the first guard after he knocked him to the floor and then calmly shot the other guard squarely in the chest.

While this was happening Ray saw that the first guard had reached down to his ankle and like some magician, had produced another gun from somewhere. Ray just stared frozen in his seat. This was the second dead person he had seen in the space of only a few hours and his mind struggled to wrap itself around what it was seeing.

As soon as the guard confidently had the other gun firmly in his hand he rose carefully, so as not to lose his balance in the moving vehicle and raised the gun to the back of the prisoner’s head. He was taking no chances in securing his shot and Ray thought for a brief second that he might be playing with him as a cat plays with a cornered mouse.

The other prisoner turned as if he had just remembered that he was not alone in the van. His hands holding the smoking gun were down by his side. He twisted his head, but not his entire body until he was level with the gun. It was pointed at his face and the two stared at each other like this for a long moment.

Reacting on instinct, Ray slid up behind the guard, clenched his fists together and clubbed the guard hard to the ground.

The other prisoner finally brought his body around fully to face him and with it brought the gun with him, aiming now at Ray’s chest. For a split second they stared blindly into each other’s eyes.

“I don’t suppose that you want to stay here eh mate? The gunman eventually said.

The other prisoner’s face suddenly exploded into a huge smile, changing his appearance completely.

“No… “Ray managed to murmur,” But the cuffs? His voice slowly gained composure with each syllable.

As if prompted into action by Ray’s question the other prisoner began to scourge through the dead man’s pockets and he was soon rewarded with a key. It only took a few moments to have them both free and during this time they felt the van come to a sudden halt. The other prisoner counted the number of shells that remained in the gun, snapped it closed and aimed it at the lock holding the door closed. He quickly fired two shots at the lock, both of which ate deep into the metal of the door. With one solid kick the prisoner sent the rear door flying open. The loud shots made him wince in the confined space.

Blood from the dead man was pooling heavily all over the floor of the van and Ray had to hold onto the side of the van to avoid slipping in it. Stepping into the pool of blood that had moments before been flowing through this man felt like a sacrilegious act but it was too late to turn back now. It was as if he had this other unknown man now had their fates intertwined.

Through the open back door he saw that the van seemed to have stopped in the middle of the road with no pretence of parking next to the curb. He had little idea of time as it was equally, racing and going slow. He wondered if they had been stopped long enough for the driver to get out and around the back somewhere. If so, was the driver waiting for them to step out with his gun at the ready? Apparently the other prisoner must have been thinking a similar thing as he was back to scowling again.

“Who wants to live forever anyway hey? The other prisoner said.

As he watched, the other man jumped from the rear of the van and onto the road. A moment later Ray followed him out, holding his breath and stepping into the dazzling sunlight like a man reborn.

Swinging around and trying to get his eyes accustomed to the light; Ray was totally unaware of his surroundings. The other man grabbed for the sleeve of his prison uniform and began to tug. Then one street over in the distance Ray saw the park. Without any more prompting they both ran forward.

His heart beat wildly in his chest as they ran down the open street towards the park. Ray ran with adrenaline coursing through his legs and he was surprised to find he had overtaken the younger man and was running a few steps in front now. Behind him he could hear the other man’s lumbering footsteps. He was considering slowing down a little to let the other man catch up when a number of rifle cracks split the air around them.

Ray spun around crazily while still running as fast as he could. He was trying in vain to see in every direction at once. Another bullet shot echoed out overhead before Ray finally located the positioning of the shots. Looking back over his shoulder he could clearly see the prison van parked on an angle, in the middle of the street. Crouched next to it was the driver aiming a rifle in their direction. Although the pair had covered quite a bit of ground heading towards the park they were still well within range of the rifleman.

Putting his head down Ray began to pick up some speed again. He consciously dodged left and right as much as he could without losing speed. He was not sure if it made him less of a target but on a primitive level it made him feel safer. He felt a bullet wiz past his head, slightly to the left. It left a solid vacuum as it sucked the air out of the space that it travelled through. He would be dead before he even knew he had been hit if one of those bullets connected with him, he thought.

“We are sitting ducks.” He began to say, when he heard with sickening clarity the other prisoner collected a bullet in the back.

The guy arched forward as if violently pushed and hit the ground. It allowed Ray to see a large patch of blood that was already flowing from his uniform. To Ray’s surprise the prisoner hit the ground and rolled forward, coming out of it like a gymnast and back onto his feet again. Once again Ray briefly wondered how such a big man had come to be so remarkably agile.

Ray slowed his pace and tried to aid his wounded colleague, but he shook his head indicating that he did not need assistance. He continued to run bravely, making Ray wonder how badly he had been hit. The only signs that Ray could see was that he was running slightly hunched over and a bit slower. As they ran he could see now that his body was more rigid and he wasn’t swinging his arms.

The driver’s bullets began to swing wide and now they sounded more like tiny pops as the two men put more and more distance between them and the rifleman. It didn’t make Ray feel safer. Finally after another couple of hundred metres the driver ceased firing all together, out of range.

The two men crossed the last road. Cars seemed to have disappeared for the moment. Before them the safety of the park loomed like a huge dense jungle.

Panting hard from the run, Ray used his remaining strength to help the wounded man through the low shrubbery and into the dense part of the park. After only a few steps in, it seemed that the forest swallowed them up and the sounds of the city disappeared. The man became gradually more and more dependent on Ray for support. As they moved deeper into the undergrowth it became harder to push through the tangle of trees and eventually the other man was forced to cry stop.

Ray gently let the man slide to the forest floor, where he lay gasping for air. The police were sure to be coming for them soon, Ray thought. He couldn’t just leave this man here to be captured again. After all, he owed this stranger something. Ray saw that the arm that he had helped to carry this man was now wet with his blood.

A couple of minutes passed and Ray’s breath began to return to him, but the wounded man seemed to be going the other way. His breath became sharper as if trying to breathe was getting harder. Ray used his leg to support the man’s head. The man looked up at Ray with tear filled eyes. Ray could tell that this was a hard man, not a man to show his emotions easily. He could only imagine the pain he was going through to cry like this in front of a stranger. Ray had absolutely no idea of what to do. The two men sat there in the quietness of the park. He had never felt so totally useless.

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