Gemma let out her breath and came out, grabbing her bag and straightening up. The fallen water bottle was half empty and she quickly drained the rest of it, stuffing it back into her bag in the hopes of refilling it along the way.
Alex emerged from the slide while she drank.
‘You know how bloody hard it is not to slide down a slide when you’re covered in sweat and wearing a pack?’ he said breathlessly. ‘I was cramping up.’
‘I don’t think they saw us,’ she replied, putting her bag back on. ‘They would’ve come all guns blazing if they had.’
Alex took the opportunity for a drink as well and she discreetly watched him while she tucked the pistol back into her waistband. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to carry it, but it was all she had. Her companion didn’t seem as stressed today as she had become used to. Perhaps he felt reconnected with normality having been home. With any luck she would be in the same boat later today.
They got moving again, carefully checking the road for any sign of the red and silver truck before darting across. The playground had been graffitied and Gemma had seen discarded foil wraps under the tower, both things a sure sign that it wasn’t a great area. She didn’t know who else might be watching them and she had no wish to hang around any longer than they needed to.
‘There’s a school up ahead,’ Alex said, leading the trot down a side street. ‘We should be able to refill our bottles.’
Gemma checked over her shoulder for the hundredth time and followed him as he veered off into the grounds of what looked like an intermediate school. They were coming across a playing field and she could see drinking fountains over closer to the buildings and the bike shed.
A bike shed.
‘There.’ Gemma cut away towards the shed, spotting a handful of bikes in the racks. She was surprised they hadn’t been stolen, but hopefully it would work to their advantage.
Alex followed her into the shed, little more than a roof with walls of wire fencing.
‘Are they unlocked?’ he said, glancing nervously behind them.
‘No.’ Gemma felt her heart sink. ‘They’re all bloody locked up. Probably why they haven’t been stolen yet.’
‘Can you shoot the locks off?’
She cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘What, is this a cowboy movie?’
He raised his hands. ‘Just an idea. It always seems to work.’
‘In the movies.’
Gemma turned away and tried to fight back her disappointment. Seeing the bikes had given her a surge of hope and now she could feel herself crashing down again. She cursed and clenched her jaw, staring at the bikes as if willing them to free themselves from their shackles.
Damnit.
‘We better keep moving,’ Alex said behind her, anxiously watching their backs.
‘Hang on…’ Gemma continued staring at the bikes, knowing she was looking at something but not seeing it. It took her a moment to click. ‘These two…’
She moved over to one rack, which had a blue Avanti men’s mountain bike secured to it by a chain through the bike’s front wheel. In the adjacent rack was the same model bike in green, only this one was secured through the frame of the bike itself, leaving the front wheel free.
‘Do you know much about bikes?’ Gemma said.
Alex shrugged. ‘I know how to ride them.’
Gemma pointed out the two bikes. ‘Take the front wheel off that one and put it on that one. That’ll give you a bike. I’ll carry on looking.’
His eyes lit up and he set to work.
Gemma soon found a second suitable bike, another Avanti – none of the bikes in the shed were expensive models – in silver. The tyres were pumped and the gears looked to be in good condition. Unfortunately, like all the other bikes present, it was locked properly through the front wheel and the frame.
The lock was sturdy enough that she would need tools she didn’t have to open it. She wondered whether she should just follow Alex’s suggestion and shoot it off, but the sound of the shot might attract attention. While she crouched there trying to figure out a plan, a memory prodded at her. They had bought her a mountain bike last year, with the intention of doing family bike rides, and she’d got a lock with it.
Mark had been insistent that she change the combination on it before using it.
Factory default setting.
She took the lock in her hands, looking at the four numbers of the combo. She couldn’t remember what the factory setting had been on her lock, and it was a different brand to this one, but she knew it was the same digit repeated four times.
The lock in her hands was currently set at 2558. She gave it a tug but it was secure. What were the chances it was still set at the factory default?
Knowing that people were inherently lazy, Gemma figured it was a reasonable guess. It was also a reasonable guess that the owner of the bike hadn’t muddled up all the digits when they locked the bike.
She rolled the first and last tumblers around to 5, so the combo read 5555. She gave it a tug and the lock sprung open.
‘Crazy,’ she muttered to herself. No wonder bikes got stolen all the time.
She left the lock attached to the rack and wheeled the bike over to where Alex was almost finished attaching the front wheel to his new bike. He looked up at her with a grin.
‘Looks like we’ve got wheels,’ he said.
Five
The house smelled musty and had old lady décor.
‘Who are these fucks?’ Curtis said, his voice the only sound in the house aside from Dice’s heavy breathing.
Curtis looked at the big lump. Whatever was wrong with him had never been formally diagnosed, the Green family not being big on doctors, or anyone else in authority for that matter. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. The boy’s mother had done it all while pregnant – booze, drugs, hidings from the old man. The boy had done it all over again once he joined the world, and Curtis knew for a fact that his brother had caused at least one significant head injury to the boy.
All that, plus the Green men were just bad motherfuckers.
He prodded Dice in the chest with a finger the size of a hammer handle.
‘Outta shape, boy?’
Dice gave that dumb grin that he had, his buck teeth overshadowing his chin. His dark hair was shaved at the sides and long at the front and back. It was a hell of a mullet.
‘Almos’ got ’em,’ he said. ‘Fuck ’em up when I do.’
‘Make sure ya fuckin’ do,’ Curtis growled. He looked past the big lump of psycho to Lena and Shavaunne and beyond them to his two sons, Gunner and Tyson. ‘Get searching,’ he said. ‘We need to know who these people are. We know that, we might know where they’ll go next.’
They set to it, ripping open drawers and cupboards and dumping shit everywhere. Curtis stood guard and watched them get into it. He’d been on the receiving end of many raids by the cops over the years, and it felt strange to be on the other side. Usually when he was raiding someone, it was a dealer and blood had already been spilled.
He watched Shavaunne sweep the contents of the kitchen cupboard onto the floor.
It was highly unlikely that the pantry held the clue they were after, but for whatever reason the girl seemed to find it necessary. There was a crash from the bathroom as a wall cabinet was ripped off.
Curtis wondered how long it would take anyone to come and see what was going on. If the neighbours had any sense they’d stay away, and he doubted the cops would be coming. If they did, well, too bad for them. He’d love the chance to mow the pricks down. Any time he’d had a scrap with them before he always came off second best, even if he won the original fight. There was always one who’d come in with a blind shot or a kick in the balls, just to make the point that they were calling the shots, not him.
Well not today. Today was different.
‘Here,’ Tyson said. He held up a piece of paper from the dining room table. Curtis snatched it from him. It was a hand-written note.
‘“
Mum, I hope you are safe. I’m okay. I’m going with a work colleague to her house. Her name is Gemma Dobson. I’ll wait there with her family until things settle down. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can, or come there if you can”.’ Curtis smirked. ‘Got an address here, down around Mercer ways.’
‘Guess I know where we’re goin’ then,’ Lena said.
‘Makes sense they’re not together,’ Curtis said. ‘She’s the one with the gun. What kinda fag would let his woman do the shootin’ for him?’
‘Gotta be a fuckin’ ring-pirate,’ Tyson smirked, all staunch bravado. He made a point of shifting the Luger in his waistband and hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his dirty black jeans.
Curtis mentally rolled his eyes. If the boy was half as smart as he was macho, he’d be a fuckin’ genius. At least he could rely on Gunner not to think with his dick.
‘Be good to find them before they get all the way down there. Don’t wanna waste gas.’ Curtis tossed his chin at his two sons. ‘You two, Shavaunne and Dice, and me and Mum. Split up in three teams. Go find these pricks. If we don’t find ’em by nightfall, we meet up at the barn. Spend the night there and go again tomorrow. Got guns and shit at the barn, so we’ll be all good.’
They all knew the barn. An actual barn, it was on a rural property that had no links to the Green family that were known to law enforcement. It had been used for cooking methamphetamine, dishing out punishment beatings and storing stolen gear.
‘Want us to use our bikes?’ Gunner said. The older of the two boys, he was coming up twenty and was lanky and good with chemicals; he was the brains. Tyson was shorter and heavier and played a lot of video games; he was the muscle.
Curtis gave a nod. ‘Be faster. Whatever any of youse do, don’t get caught by the pigs. Shoot your way out if ya have to. Everyone got a fire stick?’
He knew they all did but it paid to check. Shavaunne still had the little sawn-off .410. Dice wasn’t trusted with a gun, but he always carried a viciously-sharp Crane survival knife like Rambo carried.
Gunner had an old-school-looking Marlin Camp 9 9mm carbine which he loved, sharing the same ammo as the WW2-era Luger pistol his brother carried. Tyson being Tyson, he only had one magazine for his, but Gunner was into gadgets and shit and carried a pouch of spare mags.
Curtis gave them all areas to cover, based on the assumption that their prey would be heading south on foot. He led the way out the door, seeing a nosey neighbour peeking over a fence a few doors down. The head disappeared once they realised they’d been seen.
‘Whadda we do with Jays?’ Gunner asked.
The younger brother of Shavaunne and Dice had been shot by the woman back up near their home. He had died overnight and his body was laid out in the back seat of Shavaunne’s pimped-as-fuck black Nissan Skyline, parked just around the corner.
‘Bring him here,’ Curtis said, ‘and a can of gas. We’ll give him a Viking funeral.’
Within a few minutes Jaysin was lying on the couch in the lounge, his arms crossed over his chest and a can of Woodstock bourbon and cola tucked in beside him.
Shavaunne and Dice took a moment to say goodbye, then Curtis turned to his sons.
‘Torch it,’ he said.
The house was well ablaze when they pulled away. Curtis wasn’t bothered by any neighbours seeing them – witnesses had a habit of quickly losing interest where he was concerned. Once shit got back to normal, the cops would have a hard time figuring out how a body with a gunshot wound ended up in some old lady’s house.
If things did ever get back to normal.
Right now, Curtis Green didn’t give a shit about that. He had revenge on his mind.
Six
I scoped out the assembled group as I came down the driveway, recognising a number of neighbours.
They were gathered on the road between our place and the Van Dijks’, maybe thirty of them. I saw Bevan standing off to the side with an AR-15 hooked over his shoulder. He was watching and listening, but made it clear he wasn’t part of the group.
Rusty and Sophie were in the middle, talking to Brenton and Linda from down the road. I had seen them once since the shit hit the fan, when they had come over and asked to borrow a firearm. I’d given them a sawn-off shotgun I’d taken from a thug, but I didn’t see it right now. They had obviously decided – unlike Bevan – that guns didn’t need to be part of this conversation. Or maybe they didn’t want the other neighbours to know they had one. I guessed I’d find out soon enough.
‘Looks kind of official,’ Rob muttered beside me. ‘This a protest rally or something?’
Heads turned as we reached the end of the drive, and I raised a hand in greeting.
‘Morning folks,’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’
There was a shuffling of feet before one man stepped forward. I recognised him as Clyde, a hobby farmer from the next property over. He was a lecturer of some sort and had a big gut and gappy teeth. His wife, Ellette, was tucked in beside him. She was a big woman in a flowery blouse and a long cardigan.
‘What happened down here last night?’ Clyde said. ‘We all heard the shooting and cars coming and going, and I see some blood on the road over there.’ He squared his shoulders and puffed his chest out. ‘If there’s been trouble here, I think we all have a right to know.’
I shrugged. ‘No problem. Nobody’s hiding anything from you. Some scumbags came here last night to kill us and we fought them off. None of us were hurt, thankfully.’
‘And the blood over there?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘That would probably be where I shot one of them,’ I said evenly.
Ellette gasped and put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.’
Another woman in the group put an arm around her shoulders and Ellette folded into her. I managed to not roll my eyes.
‘There’s more blood up on our driveway and the lawn where my son plays,’ I said. ‘D’you want to see that too? That would be where two guys with guns were slower than us, and we managed to shoot them before they got inside and killed our family.’
Ellette let out a wail and Clyde gave me a reproachful look. ‘Come on man, there’s no need to be like that.’
‘Like what? Fucked off that some arseholes tried to kill my family? Or fucked off that I’m answering to a kangaroo court about it?’ I could feel my cheeks getting hot and my jaw tightened. ‘Thanks for your concern, by the way. That’s obviously why you’ve come down here, isn’t it? To check on the welfare of your neighbours? Or is to tell me what you think I’ve done wrong?’
Clyde held up his hands in a placatory manner. ‘Look, Mark, of course we’re concerned about you and your family. It’s just, I understand you had burglars the other night, and you pulled a gun on them?’ He turned and looked at Rusty, who frowned. ‘Is that right, Rusty? He pulled a gun on a couple of kids?’
‘Ish not quite like that,’ Rusty said, but Clyde turned back to me.
‘So I’m just wondering whether, maybe if you’d handled that differently, this incident last night might not have happened. That’s all.’ He spread his hands now, looking round at the assembled group. Playing the politician. ‘What d’you think?’
I grit my teeth and glanced at Rob. He had fixed Clyde with a steely glare.
‘I killed a man last night,’ Rob grated. ‘For the first time in my life I had to take a life to save another. It’s not something I ever thought I would have to do.’
Clyde opened his mouth to interject but Rob jabbed a gnarly finger at him.
‘Shut up,’ he said, ‘don’t you dare interrupt me.’ He paused, glaring at Clyde as if challenging him to push his luck. Clyde let out a sigh and stayed silent. ‘My wife, my son-in-law, his mother and my grandson, are all in that house.’ He gestured towards our home. ‘They were getting ready for bed when these bastards came here with guns. Two carloads of them, what, eight people? They came here to this home with only one intention.’
Rob shifted his hard glare across the
silent faces before him.
‘And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen. I didn’t live this long and go through all the shit I’ve been through, to lay down and roll over for pricks like that.’ He jabbed a thumb into his chest. ‘I served my country. I served your country. Anyone else here done that?’
Not a single hand was raised.
‘I didn’t think so.’ Rob stepped back, his piece said.
‘Ever been stabbed, Clyde?’ I said.
He looked at me quizzically, maybe wondering if I was about to change that for him. I pulled back my sleeve and showed him a small white scar on my left forearm. Others in the group craned to see.
‘That’s from a screwdriver,’ I said. ‘I caught a guy breaking into a car and he had a go.’
Clyde looked sceptical. ‘It doesn’t…’
‘Look much?’ I said. I shifted my forearm up to cover my face. ‘He was going for my head.’
Clyde blinked.
‘My point is, you never know what you’re coming up against. I saw two guys trying to break into my house. That means they have tools. Tools are weapons. I’d rather pull a gun on them than be stabbed and leave my family defenceless. You do it how you like, but that’s how I see things.’
‘Someone trespasses on your property,’ came another voice, ‘they get what’s coming to them.’
It was Bevan, still standing off to the side. Clyde looked like he’d sucked on a lemon.
‘You can’t just go around shooting people for coming on your property,’ he said.
‘Can’t call the cops either,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t mean we have to behave like animals,’ Clyde insisted.
I shook my head and considered my words carefully. I wasn’t trying to get offside with my neighbours, but I wanted them to at least consider the facts before they jumped to a conclusion. I was getting a little tired of being branded a thug.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ I said. ‘Martial law’s been declared.’
‘The military are in the streets now,’ Bevan piped up. ‘Looters are gunna get shot.’
Early Warning (Book 2): Getting Home Page 2
