Day 191 - Scavenger - Chapter 5 - (1390 words)

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Scavneger

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 5

Aaron climbed into an empty dumpster a few hundred feet from where he had escaped the armed men that had been hunting him, knowing it would be empty as the truck had cleared it's contents and the mobile phone by which he was being tracked less than one hour ago. The insides smelled foul and he gagged for the first few minutes as he settled into a corner, the driest he could find. Propped up against the filthy surface was a cardboard box, stuck to the side ad missed from the emptying process. It too was disgusting on the surface, but as it had been broken down and flattened for disposal he was able to turn it inside out and fashion an L-shape from it to insulate against grime and leftover garbage stains.

The smell would permeate and linger, he knew that it would no matter how much he protected his skin and clothes, that was going to happen. Here though he had a measure of protection that the street could not afford. He was out of sight, and not giving away anything about his location any longer. He was close to the place he was last seen, but he suspected that the men looking for him would assume he would get as far away as possible, that was something he would do if he could. He did need to be somewhere after dawn, but he had time between making it alive to sun up and having to be at the park where his next task was at ten a.m.

If he left too soon he would run into the men looking for him, as they had been tracking him via his phone and getting assistance in that area, he had to know that his next required location would have been shared with them. They would guess that he would head there, to get ahead of the game, to not be late and to be in line with the rules. Aaron was sick of playing this game their way, whoever they were. He needed to show them that he would not make an easy target and would not roll-over for them. This was a matter of life and death, his mother's life and possibly his death.

He set the alarm on his watch to sunrise, it had a setting for that built in, it was not an online capable watch but one that had a bunch of useful functions like compass and altitude, barometric pressure and the like. He didn't need any of those functions, or more rightly he had not needed them until now that was. Now that he was in a bind he realised exactly how good and useful these were.

His sleep was sporadic and easily broken into, the slightest noise would set off alarm bells or worry and tension in him, the nodding rest state of his head falling to his chest, or sidled up to cardboard on steel, would snap back to attention, his eyes flying open and checking that his safety was intact.

As he finally entered a dream state a half hour before dawn, he allowed his subconscious to take over and add form and substance to the fear he was feeling now. His mother's face haunted him inside his own eyelids. The look of terror and concern, equally mixed in her trepidation at her own predicament and projected fear for whatever the invisible Huntmaster had in mind for her son. In his dreams he had a shadowy face, indistinct and hard to focus on. He could see himself in his dreams but there was that odd disconnection of his identity, like in his own mind he was unsure to who he was.

He saw himself standing in his living room, replaying that video of his captive parent, over and over again and willing it to be different, to show a clue or a sign on what he could do. What he should do even.

His mother's face grew tortured and sadder as he moved through the video again and again. Each time she cried more tears, wailed a little louder and begged for her son to save her without any cessation. The alarm kicked in and beeped a tinny little series of noises at him and he woke slowly to realise that the four walls of the dumpster, metal and hollow, were acting like a loud hailer, reflecting and amplifying the sound as it pulsed out of his watch. It rattled about in his head like a drill, a headache on the rise and he fumbled the controls. It was too tiring, he was too stressed and he could not see well in the smelly dark.

“He's in the dumpster.”

Just as he got the alarm to go silent the voice cracked across his ears like a gunshot, it felt just as scary and threatening as one.

“You mean he's been under our noses the whole time? Smart kid.” There was a modicum of respect in the assessment, brief as it was. “Come on our kid, we're standing down. You made it.”

Aaron did not move, he wasn't sure they would be telling the truth, after all he had killed one of their men and they must be holding that personally. Would it be enough for them to break the Huntmaster's rules?

“Come on.” The voice attached to a hand which slapped the side of the giant, mostly empty bin and made a clanging, hollow echo that was ten times louder inside the sound chamber made by the metal walls. “Come on out.”

The lid opened up and the sunlight filtered in, still dawning outside the lane-way where he had taken refuge which was still in shadow. A face, devoid of emotion or allegiance looked in at him from behind mirrored sunglasses and reached in to offer a helping hand for Aaron to exit the self imposed prison.

Aaron ignored the hand and climbed out on his own to find three more men, all putting away their weapons and making themselves look as innocuous as possible. One of them waved at Aaron with a smile, as if thanking him for a good game.

Unbelievable! A few hours ago they were trying to kill him and now it was like they had been on the job all night and the whistle had blown. The shift was over and so was any murderous rages. Aaron walked cautiously through the men and the ignored him like he was invisible, intangible and negligible.

“Have you seen... oh you won;t know his name, but we're missing a guy. Has anyone got close to you? Have you seen one of us somewhere else?” the man who 'freed' him from the dumpster was speaking to him as if the last night had been a simple game and they were getting his team sorted at the end of it, the other players all car pooling home together, with one head missing.

Aaron said nothing and stared dully at the man.

“No? Well good game Aaron, good game.” He swung an arm at Aaron who flinched away but still got the manly chuck on the shoulder with the soldier of fortune's praise. The waft of garbage and filth from his prison of the last hours bounced back into the man's nose and he wrinkled it up in distaste, following it up with miming, waving away the stench. “Bloody hell kid, good hiding place but you need a shower!” He laughed and one or two of his team did also but it felt like it was a resentful joining in rather than a mutual sharing of humour.

“Need a lift boy?” A gravel voiced man in the team asked him and pointed towards a van parked further back up the alley way.

Aaron looked at the soldier, caught the reflection of his own dirty and stressed face in the man’s sunglasses and then walked away, out of the alley and away from the men who had been paid to chase him and try to kill him.

The one who had freed him, the leader of the pack watched him go.

“Yeah I wouldn't trust us either kid. Good luck.” Aaron was gone but he said it anyway, more for himself than his team members who heard it.