Flash! Fiction 3 by Peter McMillan - HTML preview
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The sudden simultaneous slamming of heavy car doors jolted me back to the here and now. It happened behind me, but I didn't dare turn and look. I ran, turned a corner, zigzagged through overflowing dumpsters in a urine-soaked alley, ran through several narrow backyards, climbed a balcony and looked out on an empty apartment.
Crashed on the living floor, I followed the lines on the ceiling that evidenced numerous floods. All around things looked pretty normal, in a low-income sort of way. Must be awful to live without ever knowing when it's gonna happen again though. In a dry corner, safely distant from the ceiling stains, was a computer ... a fairly new model and likely hooked up to the Internet. That's when I remembered that the default setting on my phone automatically uploaded pictures. Maybe audio, too.
If they hadn't already found it, I could download the files and go to the Globe or Times or somebody. The system came up fast and was ready and waiting while I scrambled around trying to find a flash drive. The audio was there. I knew they would be tracking access, so I spoofed the IP address and downloaded as fast as I could.
There wouldn't be sirens, so I couldn't count on a warning. The grease paint came off slowly. I dabbed on some rouge, put on a dirty blonde wig and a beige turtleneck, dumped my stuff in the garbage chute, and left by the elevator. Sure enough there were two black SUVs parked out front with a woman in the passenger seat scanning the grounds and building with a telephoto lens.
Bernie, an overweight beagle, put in my charge by the nearsighted Mrs. Pritchard who thought I was Brigit, gave me cover and an ex-cuse to change directions and walk away. A few blocks later, I 99
handed the leash over to a dog walker who seemed equally capable of managing six as five.
Yet again, I had escaped their net, though as I was making my circuitous way to the newspaper, I sensed that a much bigger net was about to drop.
First published in Beyond Imagination Digital Literary Magazine, Issue 5, July 2014.