“Hey! I don’t want one,” Coates confessed. “Don’t argue on my account. I never needed a gun before, and I don’t plan on carrying one in the future.”
Silence wedged itself between them for a moment.
“I bet you haven’t done much sightseeing since you flew in, have you?” Kennedy’s voice had a natural, pleasant tone. “I tell you, Sydney’s one of the best cities in the world. We’ve got everything you need. And the beaches, mate. Oh my God! What you got back home? Brighton, is it? Pebbles? Ours are all golden sand. Man, I love this place.”
Coates smiled at his colleague’s bravado. In his own way, Kennedy was being nice, even if done in his backhanded, insult the British way. “Sorry, mate, nothing beats Brighton Beach. Hands down the coolest place in the UK. Even Bondi pales in comparison. Have you even been?”
Kennedy stopped talking and glared at him in the mirror. “The hell you saying? No way Brighton’s cooler than Bondi. I ought to throw you out the car for saying that. You can’t come to Sydney and start slagging it off. That’s not friendly.”
“Ease up, Kennedy,” said Willis, the voice of reason. “He’s allowed an opinion.”
Coates wanted to cultivate the uncomfortable silence.
“We’re almost there, inspector.” She turned in her seat to look at him. “The woods leading to the hospital are just up ahead.”
Suspicion in Willis’ eyes made him turn and glance out of the back window.
“What’s this arsehole doing?”
A car behind them sped up, then pulled up beside them on their right.
The passenger’s window opened.
A loud bang reverberated through the car as Kennedy’s window shattered.
It all happened so fast, Coates’ brain didn’t register that a bullet had been fired until his side window splintered, and shards of glass went all over him.
Their car swerved to the left when the other car smashed into them.
By the time Coates realised that their attacker was Elf Man, he looked through the windscreen to find they were heading for an embankment, and a tree. “Watch out!” He braced for impact. Willis screamed.
The collision was a blur. Both airbags deployed when the bonnet hit the tree, fortunately not at great speed, yet fast enough to jar Coates’ neck on the seat belt. He could walk. His colleagues seemed unhurt.
“Shit!” Kennedy picked up his radio. He called in the attack to HQ, who told him to stay put and wait for backup. “Arsehole!”
Not wanting to wait, Coates opened his door.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Kennedy asked.
“Elf Man! He’s here, which means Shaw’s here, too. Now he knows we’re nearby, he’s more likely to move to his endgame and kill her. We can’t wait!”
Despite Kennedy’s protest, Coates got out of the car and started walking towards the entrance to the woods. Elf Man’s car was up ahead, where he had jumped out and was making his way to shoot Shaw. Somehow Coates’ leg had caught the brunt of the crash.
Behind him, footsteps made him smirk. “I thought you had your orders to stay put?”
Willis walked next to him, her Glock 22 out and by her side. “And let you have all the fun? No way!” She smiled.
He exchanged glances with her. “You call this fun?”
54
“I think I’ve found something,” Silhouette One said, bringing over a huge shard of glass.
It was a good size and sharp. “Quick, try it!” Keeping her hands as far apart as she could, Georgina looked away, as her rescuer tried slicing through the plastic. “Is it working?”
“Give me a chance,” he replied, sawing at the cable tie. “I’m going as fast as I can, dude.” He turned his head and stared at her. “You’re fit as–”
The bang behind her shook the room.
Georgina felt liquid on her face, only realising it was blood when Silhouette One’s body slumped to the floor, a massive hole in the back of his head. His legs twitched.
She screamed.
The shard of glass was right by her hand.
Silhouette Two stood and faced Elf Man.
In fear, she picked up the shard and sawed at the cable tie, while her stoned hero faced off against Elf Man.
With Elf Man fighting her rescuer next to her, she studied her bind.
She was almost through when Silhouette Two lunged at Elf Man, knocking the pistol out of his hand.
The pistol hit the ground a few feet away from her.
Speeding up the sawing, itching to pick up the gun and shoot Elf Man, the ties broke.
Spying the pistol on the floor, she flew across the room, narrowly missing it by a centimetre, when Elf Man reached out and grabbed it while Silhouette Two grappled with him on the concrete. “No!”
Two muffled shots rang out.
Silhouette Two fared as well as his buddy. Georgina watched as the gunshots entered through his stomach and exited through his back. Her rescuer lay motionless on top of her captor, who struggled to push the dead weight off. “You bastard!” she screamed, then ran into the corridor before he raised his pistol.
“Georgina! Get back here, you bitch, or I’m going to fucking kill you. Don’t you leave me!”
In the long hallway, she saw nothing but doorways to more rooms, the concrete flooring chipped and cracked. In front of her, a massive hole where the ground had collapsed identified itself. Hearing him shout, she jumped over the hole that led to the basement.
The windows along the corridor had no glass in them. Filled with brambles and ivy, security bars prevented her from jumping out of them. If only she could find one without bars; she would be outside, in the woods. “Shit!” She sensed him behind her.
A loud bang made her dive to her left, into a doorway. He was right behind her. On the ground, she picked herself up, and ran across the room to another door. Part of the floor had collapsed, so she stuck to the walls, shimmied across to another door.
The building was a maze of rooms and corridors. If she sprinted through enough hallways she would lose him eventually, she thought, closing a fifth door and entering yet another corridor. It felt like she’d been running for ages.
In front of her another hole further along the corridor appeared.
Making a note of it, she walked past a doorway and saw movement to her left.
Before she could brace herself, she was in the air, Elf Man on top of her.
When she landed on her back, the floor gave way and a huge chunk of concrete dropped. She screamed mid-air.
Elf Man, heavier than her, landed on his back first, breaking her fall.
55
The woods thick with bushes, brambles, undergrowth, Coates caught himself on the spiky thorns a few times, cursing into the ether. He understood why Kennedy and the superintendent thought it was a waste of time. If a huge abandoned hospital existed nearby, the building was well-hidden. “How much further?” He wiped his sweaty forehead. “We need to get inside, now.”
“We’re not far.” Willis pulled a fat bramble back and waited for Coates to walk through. “It’s around here.”
Coates tripped over a piece of brick wall. Picking himself up, he dusted himself off and scanned the area ahead. Bricks and chunks of wall lay everywhere. “Christ! No kidding about the ruins.” One chunk had graffiti scrawled over it.
“There’s one building left,” she said, leading the way.
“How do you know?”
“I’m an urban explorer in my spare time.”
He followed her through the thick forest, flitting mosquitos away with his hand. Having heard the shots, he was beginning to regret not asking for a firearm. Elf Man had one. “There! I can see it.”
Up ahead, Coates made out a large four-storey building. Derelict didn’t do the place justice: indigenous vegetation was attempting to take over, with ivy growing up the walls and penetrating them, competing with the prickly brambles. “Shit! How do we get in?”
“Up here, a door,” Wil
lis suggested, her gun out in front of her.
Pushing the rotten wood back, Coates waited behind his colleague, who took a torch out of her pocket and held it up, along with her pistol. It was dark inside the crumbling building. The floor was dangerous. “Watch your step, sergeant.”
56
Georgina picked herself up. Looking down at an unconscious and injured Elf Man, she scanned the nearby vicinity for his gun. It couldn’t have gone far, she thought, checking the surrounding area. If she found the pistol, she would be safe.
Hearing him groan, she panicked and sprinted into the darkness of the basement, ignoring the pain in her knees. They’d fallen far and hard. Splinters of glass embedded themselves in her bare heels as she ran.
“Georgina! I want you back here, you bitch!”
The basement almost as maze-like as the rest of the building, complete with corridors and multiple rooms, she hoped she would find the stairs up to the ground floor before Elf Man caught her. With her life on the line, there would be no talking him down.
With her eyesight adjusting to the darkness, she found a doorway leading to a corridor. Sidestepping along a wall, all she could hear was her own breathing, strong and often. Using her fingers as guides along the wall, she smelt something, like a dead animal. Rotting flesh. She wrinkled her nose.
“Georgina!” came his voice, closer than before.
In a blind panic, she jumped through the doorway, the stench growing with every step she took; she didn’t want to be in this room. A buzzing noise in the distance caught her attention. When his voice carried past her again, only louder, she swallowed and headed further inside the room.
The buzzing intensified, until a fly flew into her face.
Flitting it away, her foot hit something soft and cold.
Not wanting to look down, she closed her eyes.
“Please God, no.” Crouching, she looked closer: a body.
A woman lying on her back, wearing nothing but a long T-shirt, her bare legs on display.
Georgina inspected further up the body until she came to the face. “No! Isla,” she cried, her friend’s head beaten in, with nothing left of her forehead or eyes. All she had to go on: Isla’s gorgeous mouth and half of her beautiful nose. Her body was cold and hard to the touch.
Next to Isla’s body lay the corpse of a man. Georgina didn’t need to check: Oliver. She could tell by the shape of his muscular body. She couldn’t help but sob, the sight of her murdered friends too much.
“Georgina! Where are you?” Elf Man enjoyed the game.
Forcing herself to stop sobbing, she pulled herself up and walked further into the darkness, away from his voice.
A noise spooked her, and she turned a walk into a run.
After no more than five paces, her right foot hit something, tripping her.
Georgina landed on her front next to a body of another woman.
“Amelia,” Georgina wailed, grabbing her best friend’s head and cradling it, not caring that her skin felt cold. “Why?”
“Are you mental? You don’t cuddle corpses,” Elf Man said from behind her. “Our time together is up, I’m afraid.”
He was stronger than he looked, picking her up.
She wanted to say goodbye to her friends.
Stood in front of Elf Man, his face confident and strong, rage built up inside her, raw and powerful. She had to release the power.
“Too bad.” Elf Man raised the pistol and pointed it at her forehead. “We could’ve been so great together.”
Georgina flew at him, grabbing his gun arm and tackling him.
Two shots fired close to her ear.
Focused, determined, she whipped her leg around his and pushed him to the ground with a thud. And seizing her opportunity, she fell on top of him and punched his face.
Elf Man attempted to protect himself, to block her.
Screaming at him with every punch she landed, the rage inside grew until her fists were red with his blood.
There was no stopping his arm raising, the pistol held aloft.
The handle of his gun struck the top of her head.
Stunned for a moment, Georgina found herself on her back, with Elf Man trying to stand, the gun in his hand. His face covered in blood, she had done some damage at least. She shook her head, thinking how to get out of this, when she saw the handle of his knife sticking out of his shorts.
With him wiping blood from his face, she lunged forwards, grabbed the blade’s handle and turned it in, towards him, feeling the blade slide into his groin. She wanted to hear him scream in pain more. No amount of his suffering would compensate for him butchering her friends. “Fucking die, you bastard!”
On the floor, the knife stuck in him, Elf Man lay, writhing in agony.
Sensing his retaliation, Georgina turned and sprinted into the darkness, hearing two gunshots.
She ran as fast as she could past Isla and Oliver, vowing to have their bodies buried once this was over. She ran through so many doorways and along too many corridors to count.
Only when she finally stopped running and the adrenaline had worn off did she notice the blood on her dirty T-shirt. In all the excitement, she had not noticed the bullet graze her shoulder. It stung, but she was too wired to care.
Almost high-fiving the air, she climbed the stairs leading up to the ground floor. They were on the verge of collapse, although she traversed them with caution, holding on to the banisters.
“Georgina Shaw!” a voice said as she arrived at the top.
“Sergeant Kennedy, thank God!” She flew into his arms, the light blue shirt and gun in his hand her safety net against the psycho.
57
“You’re safe now,” Kennedy said, his muscular arms around her.
“He was right behind me.” Georgina broke the embrace. “He’s injured, though. I managed to stick him with his knife.”
“Good girl.” Kennedy trained his Glock on the doorway she had just come out of, and told her to stand behind him. He crouched, gun ready. “Stay low, understood?”
“Got it.” More scared than she had ever been, even with a cop on hand to save the day, after a lengthy wait for him to appear, she leaned into his ear. “Maybe he’s not following. Maybe he’s too badly injured.”
“We’re not going anywhere until backup arrives,” he answered.
It felt like she had held her breath for three days. It surprised her that she hadn’t fainted from lack of oxygen to the brain. Having Sergeant Kennedy there helped, more than she would ever tell him. “He butchered them all, you know.”
“I know.” He paused, his gun still up. “We searched their houses after we found Mr Daley… Shane, in your living room. I’m sorry for your loss. Ah hell, I’m sorry about a lot of things. I’m sorry we couldn’t help you before… I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about your friends’ texts. I’m never going to be able to make it up to you, you know.”
“I tell you what, you get me out of here, and you’re halfway there.”
“You’ve got a deal.” He tensed, leaning into his gun.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard something.” He remained silent for a minute.
“Never thought I’d love that sound.” The sirens grew louder with every passing moment. “Can we go now, please?” Ten minutes and no sign of Elf Man. She’d wedged the knife right in him. “Come on, I’ll lead.” She stood, with Kennedy in front of her, his gun still pointing at the entrance to the basement. “I have to get out of here.”
Georgina held her hand out, turned the other way, and began pulling him along. He still faced the doorway, until she forced him to join her. “He’s got to be dying down there with a stab wound that bad.”
“You don’t get rid of me that easily.”
The volume loud enough to make her ears ring, the bullet hit the back of Kennedy’s head and exited in a shower of crimson, mostly over Georgina, who turned in the turmoil and fell backwards screaming, as Elf Man continued firing, each
bullet hitting the policeman’s back.
With Kennedy on top of her, she searched around her for a way out.
By her right hand sat Kennedy’s Glock.
The knife sticking out of his groin, Elf Man fired twice more while hobbling in her direction, his face a terrible grimace, his eyes full of hate.
As the bullets tore into the policeman’s back, Georgina picked up the pistol, aimed it at Elf Man’s chest and squeezed the trigger.
The gun erupted in her hand and spat out its red-hot projectile.
She fired another two times.
When Elf Man fell back, she dropped the Glock and attempted to slide out from beneath Kennedy, her T-shirt soaked in his blood.
“Miss Shaw?” The voice came from behind her.
“Sergeant Willis,” she said, managing to push Kennedy off her. “I’m so sorry! He tried to save me.” A man she didn’t recognise came striding up to her, crouched down and introduced himself as Detective Inspector David Coates from the UK. Why was a British cop involved, she wondered?
“Scott!” Willis then spoke into her radio. “Officer down; I repeat, officer down. We need an ambo here asap. Suspect is also down.”
The sirens stopped.
“It’ll take them a good half hour to walk here,” Willis said, stroking Kennedy’s bloody face, tears streaming down her cheeks. “And this is all your fault!”
Georgina moved when Willis stood and strode over to where Elf Man lay.
“Look out!” She picked up the Glock when she saw his arm rise.
The discharge hit the ginger officer on the bridge of her nose, tore through her brain and exited through the back of her skull. In a shower of blood, Willis fell on her back.
“Willis!”
Elf Man’s laugh filled the corridor.
As soon as Elf Man changed the trajectory of the pistol and aimed it at her and the British cop, she fired three times, hitting her target each time, once in the groin, once in the stomach and once in the chest.
Mr Invisible Page 23
