Breathers Read Online Free PDF Page A

open and close. Male voices echo through the alley along with laughter and the sound of a bottle breaking. Then silence.
    “What's going on?” asks Rita.
    “Breathers,” whispers Helen. “By the sound of it, my guess is fraternity boys.”
    Rednecks mostly just scream insults and break bottles over your head and terrorize you until they get bored. Teenagers are more dangerous because of all the raging hormones, though they lack imagination. Bowling leagues are typically single-minded, using the tools of their trade to inflict their damage after a night of drinking. But frat boys dismember, beat, mutilate, torture, carve, and flambé. And they never seem to get tired of it.
    That's what I hear, anyway. I've never actually encountered any fraternity members, bowling leagues, or rednecks. And other than the teenagers who hit me with tomatoes to christen my new existence, most of the abuse I've encountered has been verbal.
    After a few minutes, another bottle breaks. More laughter, followed by a single voice:
    “Zombies, come out and play-ayyy!”
    “Uh oh,” says Jerry.
    Uh oh is right.
    At the end of the alley behind us, more than two blocks away, five or six figures materialize out of the darkness carrying various objects of destruction.
    “Run,” says Helen.
    That's easy to say when both of your legs work. But when your left ankle is a surrealistic piece of art, running isn't really an option.
    “I'll help Andy,” says Rita, slipping over to my left side. “You three go.”
    Walter and Jerry don't have to be told twice and take off. Helen hesitates a moment, then follows, her short legs pumpingfaster than I would have imagined a fifty-two-year-old zombie could run.
    Rita puts one arm around my waist, draping my left arm around her neck. “Ready?”
    I want to be brave and tell her to leave me here. But I'm glad I can't talk because it's comforting to be touched by Rita, to have her arm around me and her body pressed up against mine. And it's so much better than getting dismembered all alone. So I just nod.
    It's slow going at first, but by the time Jerry, Walter, and Helen reach the end of the alley up ahead, we've got a rhythm going and it feels like we're making good time. Then I glance back and see the frat boys barely a block behind us.
    “Gaack,” I say to warn Rita.
    Hoots and hollers echo along the alley as the steady threat of footsteps running on asphalt grows closer. Rita and I keep stumbling toward the end of the alley, like the last contestants in a three-legged race trying to cross the finish line. Except we're not laughing.
    And no one's cheering us on.
    And if we fall down we'll get attacked and mutilated.
    We're past the last building and I'm hoping we can find someplace to hide, some way to ditch our pursuers, when a figure appears in front of us.
    “Come on!” says Jerry, helping to escort me around the side of the building to a Dumpster. “Let's get him inside. Hurry!”
    Together, Rita and Jerry help me up and over the edge until I'm falling face first into something soft and sticky that seems to split open on impact.
    “Stay there,” says Jerry. “We'll come back to get you.”
    Like I have a choice.
    I listen to Jerry and Rita run off, and then make myself comfortable in the warm, gooey substance spreading across my face. It feels like glue but smells more like motor oil. Not exactly the way I envisioned spending my Tuesday night.
    Less than ten seconds later, footsteps come around the corner of the building, approach the Dumpster, and continue past, racing off in the direction of Jerry and Rita. At least most of the footsteps race past. One of the fraternity members stops right outside the Dumpster.
    When your heart's not pounding and adrenaline isn't pumping through your system, you feel oddly at ease during moments of duress. Still, that doesn't mean I'm not afraid of being found. I just don't experience the physiological effects of fear the way I used to. It's more like a memory.