SHANEGORMLEY

Rain lashed down from the heavens with merciless fury. The outline of a man darted to a nearby wall and flattened itself against the soaking wet bricks. Thick grey clouds clung like a swarm of locusts above the gothic building behind which he sheltered. The rain attacked him. Each droplet cutting into him like a shard of glass. In a state of confusion he pawed at his face. Good. No blood.

He slowly edged to his left – panicked, jittering movements – making his way to the end of the wall. Fragile hands grasped clumsily at the wet bricks before him, barely aware that they were his own. The tips were white and bloodless; the back of the palms a tortured purple and black bruise, a painful reminder of his incarceration.

Peering with one eye closed he scanned the landscape for possible routes. Sirens suddenly blared into life around him. Deafening, barking wails assaulted his ears. Struggling to concentrate in the furore that surrounded him the man lunged without warning from the safety of the wall. His feet crunched at the gravel beneath him. Each fresh stride sent small stones hurtling into the air. More than once he lost his balance and was only saved a painful crash by the surreal amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins. Purple hands shot automatically to the floor, steadying him in an instance and propelled him forward. No time to think.

Jumping over a small hedge he landed on a sopping carpet of grass that sloped gently down away from the building. Glancing back he saw a ghoulish scene. The building was black against the insipid grey light that languished behind it like the fetid stench of decomposition on a forgotten cadaver. The building was a corpse. Filthy and rotting. Riddled with maggots. Pustuled and bloated from the parasitic bacteria that feasted on its dead flesh.