The Replacement Phenomenon
He looked out of the windows surrounding him as the car made its way onto the main road. It was probably more than a ten minute drive to the hospital from their current location. It was at the other end of town, and there was no direct route to get there.
He looked out of the window on his right. Something caught his attention and his eyes widened. A man was casually walking by the side of the road that he recognised. “Hey, there's the guy!” he exclaimed, pointing energetically out of the car window. “He's walking down that street on the right.”
The policeman turned his head and responded with a nod. The officer responded, “Shall I go for him, or would you prefer I send someone else after him?”
“He's the guy. Just go get him!” Joseph responded. With that, the officer flicked on the sirens and turned the car with a sharp U-turn. He turned left down the street after it was clear that he'd seen and heard them. The fugitive started to run, but the car was catching him quickly. Joseph was determined to find answers to his questions, and this guy was the only one who could answer any of them. As far as he was concerned, this man had nowhere to run.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake didn't want to have to run again. His heart was still pounding from his earlier exertions and he felt weak from the lack of food so far today. However, he had no choice in the matter when he heard the sirens and saw the red and blue lights of a police car approach him. He knew he had to get away from the road to stand any chance of avoiding police custody.
There was a high chain-link fence to his right, but it seemed to be his only option with a police car rapidly approaching to his left. He jumped and grabbed onto the top of the flimsy fence to his right and pulled himself up with great difficulty. He heard the tyres screech and knew the policeman was about to chase him on foot. He had to get over this fence and find a way out of this mess.
He threw himself awkwardly over the fence and landed on his feet facing the officer that was chasing him, but was currently on the other side of the tall fence. He turned and started running anywhere away from where the officer was standing.
Immediately in front of him were three large round metal sheds, looking like giant cylinders buried so only the top third was visible. They were a dark shade of green and looked like Second World War bunkers laid out in a grid three wide and five deep, with space in between each unit to allow for vehicle access and parking. The units each displayed a sign above the door. Each would be owned or rented by a variety of people running their own small businesses such as carpenters or metal workshops. He could get limited cover from these buildings, but soon this policeman would be over the fence and right on his tail again.
He ran and hid behind the building furthest to his left and stayed up against the farthest wall of the shed. The policeman would undoubtedly find him there, or anywhere on that site, so he needed a plan.
There were fifteen of these buildings. If Jake could keep moving it would buy him some time to figure out what to do. He ran for the one straight ahead of him, down the left hand side of it, and stopped behind that one.
The sign above the door suggested that this building was used by a carpenter. Several large off-cuts of wood were leaning up against the side of the large metal shed. He thought about using one as a weapon, but he dreaded getting deeper into this problem. He had nothing to hide, but he was now a suspect and a fugitive. He didn't really want to add the assault of a police officer to the charges, especially as he'd now been face-to-face with the man with only a fence in between and could easily be identified.
He heard the heavy steps of an out of breath man as he approached from a distance, and using his radio as he ran. There were policemen not too far from here, so he couldn't wait around for them all to arrive and help their out-of-breath colleague.
He noticed a hole in the chain-link fence to his left. What a stroke of luck, just when he needed it. This was his escape route. If he could quietly and quickly sneak out of that hole, it might be a while before the policeman realised it was there. He took several large pieces of wood as he quickly moved closer to the fence, squeezed through the small gap, snagging his jacket slightly on one of the many protruding strands of metal, and propped as much of the wood up against the fence as he could from the other side in order to cover up his escape route. He hoped his cover-up looked as convincing from the other side of the fence as it did from where Jake was now standing. As the wood was scattered around next to a carpenter’s workshop, it was possible the man would not think anything suspicious of it until he’d checked the rest of the site. He wondered how badly he had snagged his jacket, and then he remembered he’d just been thrown from an exploding van, so his jacket would most likely be ruined already anyway.
He found himself on a small road belonging to the next industrial site along the main road. He ran in the direction of the road he'd just come from. At the entrance to the industrial plot was a single bar barrier aimed at preventing access to vehicles when the site was empty. Jake ducked underneath the horizontal red and white pole and was back to the spot where he had been walking before the interruption of the police car.
He heard a voice behind him, but didn't look back to see who it was. He just kept running until he reached the end of the road and turned left. Ahead of him in the distance was the factory where the plans for these attacks had been dreamed up. Closer to him on the left hand side of the road was his car. He reached for his keys as he approached and pressed a button to unlock it using the remote central locking. The usual beep and accompanying flash of lights ensued and he was able to then get into his car and rest his feet.
With the keys in his hand he opened the door and scrambled into the driver seat, pulling the door shut with the small amount of energy he had remaining. He leaned over the steering column to put the key in the ignition, and heard a noise behind him. He froze. He heard another noise. It sounded like someone was shuffling around on the back seat.
He looked in his rear view mirror and saw it was entirely taken up by a face just before he felt something suddenly being held tightly around his neck. The cord around his neck felt tighter with every passing second. This man was trying to strangle Jake because of what he knew or because of what he had done. It took no time at all for the cord around his neck to press like a razor against his skin. He fully expected to see cuts along his neck if he was lucky enough to get free from this.
“Hi Jake. What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be involved for another few days yet.” said the mysterious man in a low, vicious sounding voice.
“I don't know.” Jake tried to say in response, but couldn't vocalise the words, meaning his words came out in a whimper of a whisper.
“You're getting in to this thing too deep, Jake. You will either walk away now, or you'll not live to see the end of the week,” the man said next.
Jake reached up and pulled at the cord around his neck, but couldn't loosen it. “Get off me!” he said with no more success than the last time he’d tried to speak. He could feel his face turning red and his heart pounding in his chest as if it was about to burst through and escape. He knew he was on the verge of blacking out and needed to get free of this strangle-hold.
He let go of the cord with his left hand and swung his elbow backwards as hard as possible, catching this thug on the chin or the nose. Jake wasn’t really sure what he hit but he knew he’d hit something. The intruder let out a groan and fell back, letting go of the cord. He heard the sound of metal clicking against metal. Action movies he had seen in the past told him that such a sound was not good. He turned his head to see the barrel of a handgun staring back at him. The only thought in his head was, “Get out of the way!”
Jake ducked and clambered out of the car as quickly as he thought possible to the sound of glass shattering. He kept his head down and ran for the woods with thousands of tiny fragments of shattered glass falling around him, flying from the windows of the silver Mercedes as the man continued to shoot from the back seat. As he entered the
shelter of trees and foliage he heard a car door open and close, then another gunshot, then another. This man was now shooting wildly into the woods with the hope of hitting Jake, who was obviously hoping he wasn't going to get a lucky shot.
He fought through the woods up an embankment and down the other side. He was clear of the woods but he knew he needed to keep running to get away. As exhausted as he was, he found the strength to keep moving because his life now depended on it, as did the lives of his family. Once again he had no idea where he was going. He just kept on running as fast and as far as his energy-lacking body would take him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Lynn flicked on the light with the switch to the left her bed, bathing the room in a bright light instantly. With the sudden change from darkness she rubbed her eyes, as if somehow hoping that would help them to instantly adjust to the change in light. She looked at the clock by her bed. It was nearly seven in the morning. She rarely received phone calls so early, but she was not overly bothered by an early phone call. She would have to get up soon anyway. The phone was still ringing after waking her up with a start. She reached over and picked it up. “Hello. Who is this?” she said with the croaky voice of someone speaking as they were waking.
“Lynn, it's me. I know it's early but I need your help.”
She immediately thought something terrible must have happened. She fired questions at him as if from an automatic weapon. “Jake? What's going on? Why aren't you in bed? Do I hear traffic? You're not at home, are you?” She didn't wait for a response between questions as was often the case when she panicked. She paused for breath to give him time to respond.
“No, I'm in a phone box on Skinnergate in the town centre. I took a bus here from the outskirts of town. I'm in trouble and I need your help. I'll explain when you get here,” Jake replied. “Meet me by the indoor market and you can help me figure out what I'm going to do next.”
“Wait, Jake. Why would I drop everything and go running after you? What have you done?” She needed to find out something before following his command. It was possible Jake was exaggerating, although he wasn't prone to doing that very often.
“Lynn, I'm being accused of trying to blow someone up, the police are after me, and the people who really tried blowing them up are now trying to kill me.”
There was silence for a couple of seconds. She took a couple of deep breaths to try and take things in. “Well, you have had a busy day so far. What are you planning for the rest of it? Shoot someone? Rob a bank?” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm. She had instantly recognised the seriousness of this situation as Jake outlined his morning, but thought she'd try to ease the tension somewhat with a light-hearted response.
“I'm planning to survive, for one thing. I can't call Amy. These people are after her too. I need to keep her safe.”
“Okay. I'll throw something on and I'll be there in a couple of minutes.” She hung up the phone and hurriedly got dressed. What a crazy day this was already turning out to be.
As she finished getting dressed she heard the sound of her usual morning alarm, which she had not disabled in all the excitement. It was the time she'd usually be rolling out of bed, but she was already heading out of the door to help a brother who seemed to be running for his life.
She grabbed the keys to her dark red Nissan Micra and drove towards the high street. She couldn't get her head around what was going on. How does a day start off like any other and become so messed up so quickly? There was something else going on with Jake. He had become involved with the wrong people, or he'd started doing something illegal. People didn't start a day like this when the previous few days had been normal. Maybe Jake would have calmed down sufficiently to allow him to explain things to her.
High Row was the name of the main high street in Darlington. It was unusual because it was on a definite slope, causing both sides of the street to he completely different levels. It hadn’t been long since building work had finished on High Row again, this time converting the majority of it from roads to walkways. Pedestrianising the very centre of town caused more problems than simply putting down brick paving. A lot of delivery vans, cars and buses used the bottom half of High Row frequently.
The bottom half of the street was rarely seen without seven or eight buses along its length before the changes had been made. Previously buses would have to drive past the ornate Victorian Era indoor market, possibly stopping next to one of the bus stops dotted alongside it. From there they would have either continued straight on towards the main entrance of the new-looking indoor shopping complex known as the Cornmill Shopping Centre, or they would turn right immediately past the indoor market on their way down to the main roads and bus routes.
The recent work meant the route towards High Row had changed significantly. Blackwellgate, full of its Sixties and Seventies brown brick buildings, was once a thoroughfare for buses, but had now been section off and paved for the use of pedestrians only. This sent buses along a seemingly crazy one way system around the surrounding streets, bringing them out on a street named Horse Market, turning right along the bottom part of High Row. The modifications cleared the area in front of the famous indoor market, allowing shoppers to walk freely around it.
Lynn navigated her way through the maze of one way streets, past the old “Our Lady of the North” church, built in 1183, and was soon driving uphill along Horse Market with the new-looking Cornhill Centre to her right and the indoor market ahead of her on the left.
The indoor market was considered a historical gem, having been built in 1863 in a time when Darlington was known throughout the North as a market town. It was built of a light brown brick with a grey slate roof. The market building itself was typical of large Victorian buildings, but it was complimented by a clock tower built the following year in 1864. The tower had a steep pointed slate roof with an additional point on each of the four corners at the base of the roof. Between the church and the clock tower, she had seen two of the most iconic buildings in the town within a few seconds of each other. You could in fact see one from the other, looking across the outdoor market area, which doubled as a car park for every day but Monday and Saturday.
She drove slowly up the street, keeping the indoor market to her left. She passed a cluster of phone boxes and saw a very scruffy looking Jake next to one of them. She pulled over to the side of the road, where Jake saw her and walked quickly towards the car. “Thank you, sis. I owe you one,” he said as he climbed into the passenger seat.
“A very big one. Okay, Jake. How have you got into a lifetime of trouble before most people have even got out of bed?” she asked.
“It's a long story and you won't believe it, but here goes,” he replied. She suspected as much. Jake began to explain as she turned the car around and drove for home.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake sat staring at the weird cat clock on the wall in a living room. It was the only thing he had for company after Lynn walked out of the room and upstairs to think, as well as to shower and dress for the day properly.
He didn't know which part of the story was the hardest to swallow. Maybe it was the fact that he was reliving days. Maybe it was the mystical calling he'd received to save these people. Perhaps it was the fact that he'd been nearly blown up, arrested, strangled and shot before anyone else had even heard the sound of their morning alarm clock.
Whatever she thought about the whole ordeal, it was true. He had tiny cuts all over his face and hands from the road, from glass in his car windscreen and from various thorns he'd run into whilst escaping a mad man with a gun. He also had several larger cuts from being thrown to the floor by an exploding van. These things were proof of the reality of his unusual situation. He looked down at his hands. Someone had once told him that the glass from car windows is not sharp enough to cut when it shatters. Maybe he was just unlucky.
He needed to know what he was going to do next. He needed one hell of a plan. He felt like he needed to return to the factory and see if
any clues remained. Maybe something there would help him to understand why all of this was happening. The factory would also show Lynn what was really going on.
He needed someone on his side, even if he woke up tomorrow and she had no idea what was going on again. His thought was interrupted by the living room door opening.
Lynn stood in front of him with a stern look on her face. “Okay Jake. As crazy as your story seems, I can just about believe it, but only because you're a terrible liar and you couldn't possibly make this stuff up. You don't have the imagination for it” It was kind of a compliment veiled in an insult. He wondered whether Lynn was ever going to take anything seriously and leave out the witty remarks, but he recognised the need for comments such as hers in a tense situation.
“Thanks,” Jake responded, with a hint of sarcasm.
“We need to sort this out. How do we get to these people without involving the police?” she queried.
“We'll go back to the factory where they planned this lot. You'll see what's going on, and maybe there'll be other clues that weren't there yesterday - or tomorrow.”
He always managed to confuse himself when referring to yesterday or tomorrow. His yesterday and tomorrow was different from everyone else's on the planet. “All right then, let's go,” she said. “That is, if you don't mind going back to the place where you were nearly killed this morning.”
“If I avoided every place I'd nearly been killed, I wouldn't have many places left to go by now!” Jake responded. Lynn nodded in agreement and they set off for the abandoned factory on the edge of town.
In less than five minutes they'd arrived. They had both expected the traffic to be heavier at that time of day, but this route was still quiet. Against the wishes of Jake, and against her own better judgement, Lynn drove the car straight up to the car park of the factory. It was empty. The red van wasn't there, and Jake wondered why. In any case, they were safe enough for the moment.