Onwards

Country roads wind and weave their way through the countryside, littered with the disregarded trash of some and the smashed cars of others. Like a labyrinth, salvation is within reach: each turn or junction can lead one closer to freedom, but can all the same suck one deeper into the maze, until they happen upon a beast or lose their mind, reaching the end of the road, one way or the other. Pursued by fantastical beasts and lost in the labyrinth of the English country was Sean Butes.

Sean inspected the rearview mirror; a mud-splattered four-by-four tailed him. It could be a coincidence. Accelerating, Sean risked his car's impalement on the trees lining the road, but it was a necessary risk. They were coming for him. They, the ominous, unknowable they. Sean’s eyes were on the road now, he was going too fast and it only supplemented his terror. He gnawed the inside of his cheek, like a vulture picking away dead flesh. Over the brake pedal, his foot hovered, shaking.

The four-by-four pulled away, turning onto farmland. Sean took a deep breath, glanced at his wing mirror, and exhaled, “Shit.” The huge frame of the departed vehicle had concealed two smaller cars. Sean’s eyes bulged. His saloon slowed momentarily; he tensed his leg to kill its jittering, which had toyed with the pedals. They had gained on him: a black BMW and silver hatchback. The former was what Sean expected to be chased by, but the latter would be perfect for an undercover assailant. 

Suspicions penetrated Sean’s mind, as he tried to gauge his doggers. Wondering whether they were familiar, he stumbled onto a discovery: he could remember next to nothing of his journey so far. In fact, he couldn’t even recall from where he was fleeing. Alarmed by his amnesic memory, Sean panicked. Those cars were so standard, so common that he’d never be certain, whether they were bystanders to the chase or something more. Sean sucked in air, as he spawned an idea: because his car was also such a common model and style, he could find safety in numbers. The blue paint job wasn’t as standard, but he couldn’t be the only saloon with one.

The motorway, decided Sean. They’ll struggle to follow me if I’m on the motorway.

A sigh of relief parted Sean’s lips and slipped out. He relaxed in the knowledge that a reprieve, however brief, awaited him. The road before him still wound and intimidated, but Sean had only that to focus on, at least for now. Sean used the refreshing clearness of his mind to breathe, rather than consider his escape or his ultimate destination. With something that bordered on contentedness, he drove onwards.

Sean glimpsed a sign that read ‘M11 - 3 miles’. Soon came more: ‘2 miles', ‘1 mile’, ‘half a mile’. Sean careened onto the motorway, echoing the adrenaline rushing back into his system. The palpitations of his heart became audible and veins across his body rose to the surface, lining the strained tendons on his arms and circling the impressed bags beneath his eyes. Only the hatchback had followed him, but it didn’t, couldn’t match Sean’s pace. The car was far in the distance and further still from Sean’s mind.

Though free from the labyrinth, Sean was still in a maze, which grew and changed with the arrival of new cars, departures of others, all partaking in the ceaseless craft of overtaking. Fleeing from some unknown, unseen attacker, he switched lanes whenever a pocket developed between the cars about him. The traffic was free-flowing; he progressed through it unchallenged and fast enough, that he needn’t consider each vehicle he passed. His progress lay somewhere between artful and panic-stricken. The thought that any of them could be on the prowl loitered in the back of his mind, but their lack of urgency massaged his anxiety. 

Buzzing, Sean’s phone pounded the sides of its compartment. The screen came to life and a notification appeared in the centre. Sean glanced down, then back at the road. The letters were too small; he couldn’t read them. His eyes darted between the motorway and the elusive message. Tapping the wheel with his thumb, he launched into a rhythmless drumroll, as his innards were torn up:

Am I to risk it? he thought. Does it warrant that?

While distracted, he’d stopped his weaving. No gaps opened up around him, even though he’d decided to go onwards. He was caged in by - how many cars? He counted three, four, five. He swallowed. A green Toyota, with kids inside; they couldn’t be actors, surely? A Mercedes, black, driven by a lone man: suspicious. The sound of Sean’s wheel drumming devolved into limp splats, as his hands became clammy. There was a striped, red Mini ahead of him going too slow - everyone was going too slow. With a throaty exhalation, Sean tailgated the car, which was bottlenecking his escape.

Sean’s phone buzzed again. And again. He grimaced, looked down, then up. Sean’s head flipped between the road and the screen, up then down. Despite his heavy breathing and the sickly feeling festering within his stomach, he put the vibrations from his mind. When he scoured his surroundings, he found two of the cars missing: the Mercedes and one he hadn’t examined, an unknown. 

Shit, he thought.

Tension clawed the back of his throat. His eyes watered. His legs shook. Unreasoned speculations invaded his mind, answers to the questions he was inventing. 

What had they found? What did they know? Why had they moved?

Sirens. Police sirens, from cars which couldn’t be made out in Sean’s wing mirrors. No sense could be made of the reflections in the rearview either. Sean urged his car to surge through the gap made by the Mercedes and the mystery vehicle. The saloon bolted through, but couldn’t match Sean’s desired speed. 

Sean gripped the wheel tight, but it was wet with sweat. It seemed the oceans could be filled twice over with Sean’s sheer perspiration, but it only precipitated more. Sean’s fine hair clumped together, sticking to his forehead in a black mess. He turned on the AC and took a deep breath. Yet only through the culmination of sundry, shivery breaths, punctuated by shallow intakes of air, could he exhale.

Sean twisted his whole body around for just a glance out the back window. One of the police cars was making up ground. Another larger sirened vehicle was following its path. His pursuers had abandoned all subtlety, all discretion. Sean pressed down on the accelerator pedal. He wondered whether it was too late to turn himself in; whether he could go back where he came; where, even, he had come from. His memory was still fuzzy. He felt sick.

His phone buzzed.

In the wing mirror of the saloon, a police car appeared; the second police car. The first only got bigger in the rearview. Sean was running out of time. His legs were shaking. Maybe it would be for the best if he were captured. Maybe, he’d be reformed, helped. That’s what they’d offered in the past. Safety.

But he had run and he was still running: an offence of its own. They were coming for him. He forced the accelerator down farther, flexing so much he recoiled into the back of his seat. Emulating his now-erect body, he hardened his resolve. Onwards, he drove, followed by the police cars, to his side and behind him; followed too by the third sirened vehicle: an ambulance.

His phone buzzed. This time it was continuous; it rang, it sang an enchanting song, like a Siren luring Jason to the rocky coast. 

Accelerating, the Argo passed one, two cars. The first police car followed the same route, while the other cruised in parallel. The sea of cars parted for the wailing alarms. Sean, thinking himself Moses, spurred the car onwards, but the law gathered pace too. Mirroring the second squad car’s strategy, the first swerved out to the other side of the saloon. Encroaching upon the opened space, the colossal ambulance advanced. It cast a looming shadow over the fugitive automobile. Sean’s path was blocked on the left, right, and behind; he could only go onwards.

The sun had been blotched out by the ambulance behind him, but Sean didn’t stop. Despite the ability of his pursuers to compete with nature, clear the maze of cars, and entrap him, Sean did not stop. He knew only that he wanted to go onwards; Sean Butes did not stop.

His phone continued to ring. He glanced down. In bold letters, the word ‘Mum’ was visible on the screen. Sean clenched his eyes shut, but he could do nothing to prevent tears trickling down his strained face. He succumbed. Sean put the phone to his ear.

“Sean?” called a voice.

He froze.

“Sean, talk to me,” continued the distraught voice.

Stuttering, he responded, “Mum?”

“You need to go back,” she said, shakily. “They can help you, Sean.”

“No,” he whimpered, as his eyes swelled further.

As far as the eye could see, the road was clear. Cars lined the side of the motorway, right up to the bend.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, Sean, but you need to let them take you back.”

“I can’t.” 

“You can, Sean. You have to. Please, my love.”

“They’ll arrest me,” he mumbled, through a cascade of tears, which blurred his vision.

The road ahead was obscured as though drops of rain were coating the windscreen.

“They won’t. They’ll put you in the ambulance. Sean, you need to let them help you.”

“I have to-,” he faltered. “I have to go onwards.”

“What? No, what are you talking about?” Her voice went higher with each word. “Sean, please.”

“Mum?” he sobbed, blinking as though his eyelids were windscreen wipers.

“Yes, Sean?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Can you try slowing down?” Her voice trembled as she spoke, “Please, Sean. For me?”

The driver’s eyes drifted from the road to the phone.

“Sean, are you slowing down?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, you do, Sean. Put your foot on the brakes and-,” she was stopped by a deafening crash. “Sean! Sean, speak to me.”

There was no response.

“My love! Baby, please!”

To still no response, Mrs Butes continued calling for her son.

“Ma’am,” a voice eventually responded. One of the police officers had picked up the phone, while the paramedics swarmed the body. “Your son crashed, ma’am.”

Muted sobs crackled through the speaker.

“You did everything we asked of you, ma’am. Sean’s being cared for as we speak, he might be okay.”

Mrs Butes hung up the phone and crumpled to the floor, accompanied only by her tears. Her son, her baby, her reason; dead.