by Mark Ayre
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know you are, darling. I’m going to do everything I can to stop Heidi and her boss and make it so you never have to be scared again. Okay?”
“And if—when—you win. Will you visit more often? I know what dad said, but he doesn’t mean it. Not really.”
“Edie,” Mercury said, giving Xyla back and clutching the girl’s shoulders. “I’ll be round here so often you’ll be sick of the sight of me.”
“Never,” said Edie, beaming.
Someone knocked on the door.
Alert to the potential danger, Mercury whipped around her head. They had remained in the doorway between entrance hall and living room. Mercury nudged the teen and the baby further into the living room, seating them beside the bag of money on the sofa.
“Stay here.”
“We do get visitors,” said Edie. “The postman comes this far.”
Mercury smiled. “Let me put my mind at rest. Just stay put.”
Moving to the living room door, Mercury removed her gun and one of the magazines. As she stepped into the hall, Will rushed down the stairs.
“Put that away.”
“It might be trouble. Cleo might have sent people after me.”
“Well let’s find out.”
“If you let me—“
“No.” Will was at the bottom of the stairs. He held out a hand, ordering her to stay. “This is my home. Leave it to me.”
Handgun in one hand, magazine in the other, Mercury kept her back to the living room door frame, watching as Will reached the door and placed his eye to the peephole.
Twisting to her, he whispered, “Looks like an old lady. I don’t recognise her.”
He turned to look again. “Who is it?”
An erupting blast answered.
A shotgun slug smashed through the letterbox, crashed into Will’s ribcage and sent the confused father flying from the door into the stairs from where he rolled to the bottom.
Edie screamed. Xyla began to wail. A voice trilled through the letterbox.
“Who you calling old lady?”
Thirty-Two
They almost missed the path into the woods. Stephanie swung the wheel at the last second. A few minutes later they were forced to pull to a stop behind three stationary vehicles.
Stephanie said, “Looks like we’re late for the party.”
“Get out, be careful,” said Pluto. “We don’t know if these cars are empty.”
The four of them stepped from the car. Sam was the last to leave. Her hands were trembling. She was afraid of what might go down. Not only that but of what she might see. She still did not know whose side she was on, or why.
Brazen, unarmed, Pluto stepped from their car and checked the other three vehicles one at a time. Upon confirming the four of them were alone in this part of the woods, he gestured them forward, and they joined him at the front of the primary vehicle.
“So,” said Stephanie. “Where now?”
In the distance, the blast of a shotgun. The sound reverberated through the trees, seeming to make its way towards them.
“Simple enough,” said Pluto. “Follow that sound.”
The second shotgun slug smashed the lock and threw the door backwards, revealing the outside world.
Mercury fired once through the door and once into the wall. The shooter was smart. After calling through, she had receded from the door, taken cover. Mercury had fired hoping not to kill the person but hold them off.
On the floor, at the foot of the stairs, Will lay with his hand against his stomach, his eyes wide with shock. Blood covered his shirt, his jeans, the wood flooring at his feet. It was creating a slip hazard, but Mercury seriously doubted he had a sign.
Edie was calling, crying, demanding to know what was happening. While slamming the magazine into the gun and preparing the weapon to fire, Mercury poked her head into the living room.
“Grab my bags, the little black book, come to me now.”
Movement outside the door. Mercury fired again. Each magazine held only seven shots. She had only two magazines so was already down to 11 shots.
Will’s eyes were darting in his head, losing focus. Behind Mercury, she could hear Edie gathering the things while holding the baby. She hated what the girl was going to have to see, but her choices were limited. She had no idea how many enemies were outside. They could easily have covered both front and back doors. They needed to move to somewhere not in the open, and a little more defensible.
As Edie approached the living room door, Mercury held out a hand, blocking her.
“This is going to be upsetting. If you want to give us all the best chance to survive, you need to run upstairs on my go. Are you ready?”
Edie didn’t respond. When Mercury turned back, the girl was sobbing, shaking her head, terrified.
“We don’t have time to mess around, sweetheart. You have to be ready to move.”
“Daddy.”
Edie was still shaking her head. It seemed to be all she could do.
“If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for Xyla,” said Mercury. She hated to emotionally manipulate the girl but was trying to save their lives. They didn’t have the time for consoling speeches.
Edie looked at the baby in her arms. Focused on the child’s wet eyes. A steel overcame her. She nodded.
Mercury nodded.
“Okay, go.”
Mercury stepped from the living room door, holding the gun towards the entrance. Her ears were cocked. She knew there was a chance the shooter had moved to the back entrance, or another shooter was already there. She hoped she would hear anyone approach from that side when they opened the door from kitchen into living room or kitchen into hallway. That would give her a chance to react.
Mercury stepped in front of Will, pointed her gun out the door. She could see no one through the trees but knew there were plenty of places to hide. The shooter could also be on either side of the door.
Edie stepped into the hall, let out a low sob and stopped as she saw her father. Mercury had no time to look back and urge the girl on. She had to focus on keeping them alive.
Rushing forward, Mercury pressed her shoulder against the wall beside the open door and pointed her weapon out at this fresh angle.
No one in sight. They might be on the other side of the wall to Mercury, inches away.
Regaining some semblance of composure, Edie rushed across the hall to the bottom of the steps, where her father formed only a minor obstacle to her continued journey.
The dying man smiled at his daughter. Gave her a thumbs up to show it was okay. Pointed at Xyla. Protect the baby.
Someone smashed through the door from the kitchen into the hall.
Edie screamed. Jumped her father. Half ran, half scrambled up the stairs while holding the bags and Xyla.
From her position by the wall, Mercury raised her gun and fired twice, persuading the door smasher to dive back into the kitchen.
A shotgun slug blasted through the wall and burned a line across her arm as it flew past. Mercury span, putting her back to the kitchen door and fired twice through the wall as she side-stepped in front of Will.
Another shot came from the kitchen, missing Mercury by an inch. With a hop, she cleared Will and landed three steps up. Edie had reached the top of the stairs and raced down the hall to her bedroom.
Seven shots down. Mercury ejected the spent magazine and replaced it with the other. Seven shots to go.
“William, we have to move.”
The shooter popped out from the kitchen, tried to get an angle, fired through the bannister, up the stairs, once more barely missing Mercury. She rose another couple of steps as the gunman retreated into the kitchen. If he came again, he would have to venture further into the hall to bring her into his sights. Hopefully, she’d get a chance to blow him away before he put a bullet in her.
“Will, please. For your daughter, try to move.”
Leaning against the bo
ttom step, Will clutched his stomach. Blood had painted his hand red. He tried to move and, after some effort, pulled himself onto the bottom step. This smallest of moves seemed to take most of his remaining energy.
“Maybe I’ll see Gina again,” he said. “You don’t think they’ll keep her out of heaven, after what she did? She was infected. It wasn’t her fault. They’ll understand that right, the angels?”
Mercury couldn’t tell if Will was delusional or not. She wanted to grab him and drag him up, but her handgun was pointed at the open door. She was listening, hoping to hear if the man in the kitchen tried a sneak attack.
“Try and move again, Will. For Edie.”
“You’ll look after my daughter, won’t you? You’ll look after Edie, and Xyla too?”
“It’s not going to come to that.”
“Of course you won’t,” he said, and he chuckled a little. “You’re going to die saving the world. Whether you succeed or not.”
The words sent a jolt through Mercury she found difficult to ignore. He was more perceptive than she thought. He was also fading. He rested his head against the bannister. Without being able to see his face, Mercury sensed he had closed his eyes.
“Will—”
The kitchen shooter burst into the hall, spinning, firing up the stairs. Mercury jumped two steps up, as though planning to escape onto the upper landing, then grabbed the bannister and vaulted it, dropping to the carpet.
The shooter span wildly.
Mercury shot twice. Once in the throat, once in the head.
With a scream, the shooter went down. His blood spurted out, and Mercury had to throw herself back to avoid the poisoned spray of the infected.
As she landed on hard tiles in the kitchen, more shots fired. These seemingly from further away. Someone burst through the kitchen door. Mercury raised her gun and shot them in the heart.
She was up in time to see the first shooter burst through the front door as though a hound of hell was at her heels. For the first time, Mercury clocked who it was as she raised her gun and fired.
She got off a single shot before Nanny sent a blast back her way, forcing her to retreat.
Behind Mercury, the man she’d killed began to rise. Possessed. She shot him through the eye. It wouldn’t keep him down. Knowing Nanny had passed Will and was moving upstairs, she couldn’t wait around. Turning from the kitchen, she raced into the hall, leapt over the pool of melting blood caused by the man she’d killed already, and hit the wall at the front of the house. Then she was turning, jumping over Will, praying he wasn’t dead, and racing up the stairs.
Nanny wanted to kill Edie and Xyla to hurt Mercury. Nanny would never get the chance.
Sam watched Pluto drop and didn’t know what to feel. She screamed when he rose, and the woman shot him through the eye. Almost fainted when he rose again and turned her way.
There was a hole in his heart. Blood covered his clothes. His right eye was missing. Sam wretched when she saw it and had to stagger away, collapsing to the dirt as she did.
“Well, that’s rude,” said Pluto. There was a pause. then a squishing sound. “Oh great, I’m going to look like a pirate.”
Sam was panting on the floor, trying not to be sick. When Pluto hooked a hand under her arm and tugged her up, she whimpered and went limp, trying to fall. He wouldn’t let her.
“Come on, Sam. I need you to be strong.”
He held her until he was sure she would stand alone. As he released, Stephanie appeared. Unsurprisingly the wreckage of Pluto’s face didn’t bother her. After all, she believed him a God, and God’s were immortal. It was one of their USPs.
“Your new mate’s gone after the woman,” she said.
“We should follow them.”
He turned, but Stephanie lay a hand on his arm.
“This Mercury came alone,” she said. “Two people had travelled in that second car. I reckon that’s the shooters we seen in the house.”
“So?” said Pluto.
Stephanie rolled her eyes, disappointed her God could not make the small leap of logic required. Even a child could do it. Or someone on the verge of hysteria.
“There were three cars,” Sam said, her voice high, wobbling. “Who was in the third.”
As Sam finished speaking, something small and near-circular flew through the trees, past Pluto’s head, and plonked into the kitchen, sliding along the tiles, landing by the oven.
Then it exploded.
Mercury raced three-quarters of the way up the stairs, then paused. Nanny had already disappeared around the corner. She had a shotgun with an unknowable amount of ammo. Mercury had her pistol, which held only two more shots. She couldn’t waste them.
Her back pressed to the wall, Mercury edged up another step. Then another. The right turn from the top of the stairs came into view. Two doors. Both closed. Mercury knew Edie’s room was the other direction. Nanny didn’t. It was feasible the shotgun wielder had turned this way.
No. Mercury heard footsteps. Quiet but unafraid. Predator, not prey. She had turned left because it offered three doors rather than two. Now she was edging down the hall, listening for any sound of hiding children.
Somehow, Edie was keeping Xyla quiet. It was a miracle, or that teenager was a magician. Mercury didn’t care. It was working in their favour, at least for now.
Another step. Mercury’s back was still pressed to the wall. Nanny had to be taking frequent glances this way. Her shotgun would still be pointed towards the stairs. She knew it was from that direction the danger would come. Mercury had to try and round the corner, place a shot and fire before being made. She was at a disadvantage. The buck of the shotgun blast would spread along the hall. Nanny would not need to be as accurate as Mercury.
Nanny also had no need to protect anyone. She was in no rush. She was enjoying herself.
Mercury stepped up again. The final time. Now she had to make a decision. Swing around and seek to aim and fire immediately, or poke her head around the corner and then back, trying to make Nanny before the final shot.
She probably had only half a minute.
If that.
Xyla began to cry.
“Ah-ha,” said Nanny. Mercury heard a door flung open—
And spun into the corridor.
Nanny swung back. Mercury had been faster. She had her gun lined up, her finger on the trigger.
And beneath her feet. Something exploded.
Thirty-Three
As the grenade slid along the kitchen floor, Pluto grabbed Sam’s arm, pulled her into his chest, and put his back to the house.
When the bomb detonated, Sam felt the force of it rush at them and roll over Pluto’s shoulders. The heat was intense, burning her skin. The shockwave made her eyes water.
Pluto didn’t move.
Half the kitchen wall blasted outwards. Fragments of brick flew all around them like huge chunks of hail falling from the sky.
As Pluto had pulled Sam close, as the grenade exploded, Stephanie eyes’ had narrowed in fury, and she had opened her mouth to shout.
The shock wave and a chunk of kitchen wall and countertop smashed her, out of sight.
Things calmed quickly. Pluto wasted no time. Pushing Sam back, he stepped away from the house towards the woods.
As someone appeared out of the trees, sprinting in their direction.
Mercury’s ears were ringing. The blast had seemed to punch the floor and Mercury had been thrown into the wall then to the carpet. The whole house shook and seemed to teeter to one side. Mercury decided she was sick of being inside exploding buildings. At least this one hadn’t been her fault.
The explosion had been on Mercury’s side of the house. The whole corridor had shaken. Nanny stumbled and smacked her head off the door frame but didn’t fall.
Grabbing her gun, Mercury sat up, fired.
Nanny disappeared into Edie’s room. The bullet smacked the frame where her head had been a second earlier.
Jumping to her feet, Me
rcury crashed down the hall. The shotgun blasted. Xyla howled. Mercury skidded to a stop by the door as Edie screamed.
“Come another step, and I’ll put a bullet in the teenager’s skull. Then anywhere in the baby. She’s too little to aim at individual parts. You understand.”
Mercury’s body trembled. Hot breath escaped her nostrils. Her skin burned. A heat rose within her, demanding action, demanding she burst through the door and take Nanny out.
Not kill her. Murder was too good for the woman on the other side of the wall. Torture, years of torture. Possibly decades. Enough to punish her for the threat she had made against an innocent girl and baby. If such a thing were possible.
“Did you like my little act, back at Michaels Manor?” Nanny asked. “Did I seem helpless? A poor little human surrounded by the infected. I’m more dangerous than any of them. I’m the most dangerous person you’ll ever meet. Except for Heidi, my wonderful master.”
Mercury didn’t respond. She was trying to devise a plan and anyway, rage had choked her. She couldn’t have uttered a word.
Nanny wanted to force the issue. “How many bullets have you left?”
Mercury’s grip on the holster of her weapon tightened. If she had counted correctly, her shot up the hall, after the vanishing Nanny, had reduced her to a single bullet.
It took several deep breaths before she was ready to speak.
“I’m all out.”
“Oh I do hope that isn’t true.”
“You feeling guilty?” asked Mercury. “You have a shotgun. Why don’t you turn it on yourself? Do us all a favour.”
Nanny laughed. A sickly sweet trill that somehow raised Mercury’s rage another notch.
“I have my shotgun to the little madame’s head,” said Nanny. “That’s where it will be staying until you do as I say.”
“And what do you say?”
“Heidi’s warned me about you. I won’t be taking any chances. Much as I’d like to finish you off myself, it’s too risky.”
