Short Thriller Fiction
Hummingbird Alley
Crime never repays crime.
Nothing says ‘I’m alive’ like your heart hammering in your ears. A sound beaten only by footsteps receding into a creepy alley.
I kicked off a wall, rounded a roll-top bin and continued in pursuit. My chest was burning, and my legs felt laden with concrete. It mattered little, that scumbag was going down at all costs.
Something metal clattered to the right.
I jinked into the side alley, leapt a pile of boxes and festering bin-bags and increased my pace.
Somewhere ahead the felon hit a chain-link fence. The rattling of metal unmistakable.
I plunged through a wall of steam from a building’s extractor system, entered a wider loading area and spotted him. Drawing my taser I yelled, “Stop now or I will shoot!”
Clad in black tracksuit bottoms and a stained white vest, which revealed a hummingbird encased in a red circle on his bicep, he hauled himself over the fence. From the top, he grinned as he flipped a V-sign in my direction. Then he was away into the darkness.
I swung a bin at the fence, mantled it and jumped to the other side. My knees buckled on landing. I went into a roll and regained my feet.
My night working as a Road Traffic officer had taken a detour when this slimy scumbag crossed my radar. The ANPR in my car flagged his Volkswagen Golf as stolen. The thief was wanted in connection with the murder of a police officer. and multiple counts of theft and assault. Lowlifes like him were on a mission to ravage the city and devour what was left of its bloodstained society. The chase to stop him was short-lived. He took a corner too fast and parked his car in the Kosher Greengrocers.
His footsteps echoed around the dirty walls like a drummer beating out a rhythm. That made him as trackable as sonar.
Moths hung in the streetlights as I raced beneath, made a left following a glassy crash and someone screamed.
“Police, run!” the girl was half-naked and pinned to the wall.
Her thuggish friend with electric blue spikes for hair was caught between undoing his trousers and snorting cocaine. He baulked and fled passed me. His trousers hit the floor and he crashed headlong into a bin.
“Bloody idiot!” I shook my head and kept running. I knew I’d catch his arse another night.
Ahead a cat shrieked and flashed from yet another side alley.
I entered and heard the scumbag’s footsteps cease. He’d stopped running. “This is — Officer — Faulkner, send units — to my position. The perp — is pinned in the — alleys here — somewhere, over,” I said into my radio while regaining my breath.
“Heard, officers en route.”
“Much obliged, get them to cover all exits. Oh and if they see a guy with electric blue hair, they should nick him for possession too.”
“Roger that.”
I drew my taser and crept into the darkness. Even with my torch lighting the way, the walls seemed to press upon me. This alley smelled like a rubbish dump recently peed on by a whole football team. Rats squeaked and dashed away with every step I took.
“Where are you?” I whispered, my hands sweating on the grip of my taser.
He’d gone as silent as a corpse if he was still here.
I hadn’t gone much further before I hit a wall, a right turn revealed a frustrating dead end.
Here was a blood-red wall jutting out of a festering pool of water from a blocked drain. The usual graffiti filled the brickwork, gang tags, sordid cliches, offers for sexual favors, the works. None of it was useful right now.
I had to backtrack and search for…
The cat caught my attention. Black body, long, narrow neck. One ear longer than the other, a missing eye. It kind of resembled my brother, but that wasn’t it. By its side was a small black hummingbird in a bubble. The same bird my suspect wore. This was his domain. He was here somewhere.
Determined to catch him, I left the wall and scanned the alley. He couldn’t pass through walls, this was the real world, not the Matrix. There were several doors, I knew belonged to the shops and salons on the street beyond. Each of course locked after business closed hours earlier.
The hairs rose on my arms, something had changed. A coldness wafted over me like a damp cloth. Had I become the prey? I felt sure he was watching me.
“Constable Henley to Officer Faulkner. Any updates on the perps location? Over.”
The feminine voice from my radio hit me like a lightning bolt. I jumped against the wall and felt every cell in my body lurch with adrenaline. “That’s a negative, Constable Henley. I think he went up into the buildings. I’m behind the Scope disabled charity shop now.”
“Roger that. We have the street locked down.”
The last possibility of hiding was the fire escapes. There were three such metal ladders here. Two were inaccessible, the last ladder was within reach of a roll-top bin. A quick look revealed fresh blood drops on the lid.
“Gotcha!” I gained the ladder and hauled myself onto the balcony above. With no sign of entry, I climbed to the third floor. Then the fourth and fifth. It was here I met the hummingbird again. This time emblazoned on the crumpled double-glazed door of the apartment here. The window was smashed and boarded and beer bottles littered the balcony.
“Perp is on the top floor above the bookies. Get around here fast!” I demanded into my radio.
Before me, the door handle slowly descended as someone opened it.
“Roger that, on my way.”
The lock clicked and the twisted plastic popped, as the door crept inward.
The stench of sweat mixed with stale alcohol and acrid cannabis fumes hit me hard. My eyes stung and I fought with the urge to cough. I had to stay composed or my life could end in a few seconds.
“Did the police panther just catch himself a boar, or has the hummingbird turned spider and caught a fickle fly?” said the man his voice slurred from drugs and blood loss.
“Come out with your hands up!” I yelled with as much authority as I could muster. Between the sweat pouring from my adrenaline-sloshed body and the hammering of my heart, I knew I looked anything but in control.
“Sorry, officer. My hands are busy with my knife and cleaver just now.”
“Then stay where you are. If you come outside you will be tased, is that understood?”
He laughed, “That’s truly shocking, officer.”
‘He has jokes,’ I thought. “How about this for funny; Your arse is under arrest for theft of a motor vehicle, robbery, assault, and the icing on the cake — murder of a police officer.”
“Just one murder?” something heavy and metal clattered to the floor. “You pigs must be slipping.”
“You confessing to more murders then?” I ask buying time. There were more than a dozen unsolved murders in the last year alone. Could he be guilty of the lot?
“The hummingbird’s beak is firmly shut in the confessional booth. Yet he flits about day and night doing whatever he wishes.”
“What is this hummingbird façade? Some kind of Batman arch-enemy fetish, or something?”
“Hmm, perhaps, and yet it doesn’t have a dark enough ring to it does it? No, officer. The hummingbird was taken from me. Her death is the sole reason for the demon infesting my soul.”
“So, you lost someone you love. Why does that give you a reason to hurt and kill others? Doesn’t that make you as bad as whoever took your—”
He came in a flash of silver.
I jinked aside with a yelp.
The cleaver crashed against the railing and flew into the cold night air with a shower of paint flecks.
“Freeze!” I screamed as I swung my taser to bear.
His eyes were bloodshot and inhuman. A blood clot beneath his ear, added to glass slashes across his unshaven face, from the car crash. He smashed the taser from my hands and drove a large cook’s knife into my body armor.
Twice I felt it hit but not penetrate.
He was as strong as a bear.
I was powerless to stop the knife from plunging into my shoulder. Then I was on my back screaming as he twisted the blade.
“Hummingbird was my daughter. I called her that because she was born with a tachycardic fast heartbeat.” He yanked the blade from my flesh. “She survived major surgery and lived until she was five. That was when a cop car chasing an uninsured driver, crashed into and killed her and my wife.”
“I don’t understand!” I breathed from beneath him, eyes fixed on the dripping knife. “Why then get into a car chase with me? You could make the same thing happen again.”
He grinned. “Of course, but I need officers to chase me so I can murder them in punishment for my Hummingbird.”
“I want you to know, I am truly sorry for the loss of your precious family. It was a terrible, tragic accident that should never have -”
“Shut up!” he stabbed the knife toward my face.
Somehow I forced his weight aside avoiding the knife by a millimeter.
“Officer Faulkner, where are you?” called Henley from below. From the footsteps, I knew a group of officers were responding now.
“He’s right where I can butcher him!” he yelled back. Drawing a pistol he fired two shots below.
My chance arrived, I scythed my knee into his groin, then kicked the knife from his hand.
He roared with anger.
My boot connected with his mouth, shattering his teeth and barreling him into the wall.
“Up here, quick!” I yelled as I rose with a grimace of immense pain from my shoulder.
He rose like a smiling drunk. “Feisty aren’t you?”
“No, just determined to live for my daughters.” I held my injured shoulder. “Now, get down on the floor.”
“Never!” he drew a third knife, this one a cruel butterfly knife. With a guttural scream, he leapt at me.
I caught him with a fist to the jaw as I rolled passed the blade.
It was then he tensed and fell on his back, twitching as 50000 volts from Constable Henley’s taser incapacitated him. “You okay?” she asked as two officers passed and cuffed the crazed suspect.
“Nothing a few stitches and a couple of beers won’t fix,” I said, regaining my feet.
“How’d you find him?” she asked while pressing a wound pad to my shoulder.
“I followed the hummingbird. It’s a pity police errors resulted in him committing all his crimes. We must do more to prevent such tragedy from occurring in the future.”
“I agree, for now at least the hummingbird can rest. He’ll get the help he needs and the city will be safer for it.” Henley led me back to ground level.
“While all that happens, I’m going to hug my girls and take them to Disneyland. It should be safer there,” I said with a smile.
“Great plan. Just watch out for Darth Vader. I hear he’s an evil devil!”
The End
Thanks for reading my friends.
Have a great day!
Originally published at http://masonsmenagerie.wordpress.com on May 20, 2024.
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