Poison Orchids: A darkly compelling psychological thriller

by Sarah A. Denzil

  Hayley and Gemma stepped out onto the upper floor first, then Tate. Megan and Eoin followed.

  Tate gave a polite nod to Gemma and Hayley. “I wish things had turned out differently.”

  “Me too.” Gemma plunged the needle of the syringe that she held directly into his arm.

  His mouth went slack, eyes widening in a sudden, confused panic. He stared down at the needle hanging from his arm.

  “I didn’t put it into the compactor, Tate,” Gemma told him. “It’s all about tricking someone into believing something that is slightly true, but not completely true, right? You taught me how to do that.”

  “Sorry, Chemist.” Eoin wrestled him back into the underground room.

  Gemma rushed out of the house alongside the others.

  “Wait.” Megan held up a hand, catching her breath. “Are there any other guns?”

  Eoin shook his head. “No. They took the only two. The rifles are kept on a shooting range.”

  “Okay,” Megan breathed. “Then we’ve got nothing. No defences. You three stay here. Find a phone and call the police. I’ll head over and warn the kids in that hall.”

  Hayley clutched Megan’s arm. “Thank you. But this is our fight.”

  Gemma sprinted away with Hayley and Eoin—Megan’s desperate calls for them to come back fading away.

  The hall loomed ahead—squat and windowless.

  Eoin broke away and headed around to the side entrance by the kitchen.

  The huge double-doors of the main entrance were open.

  Gemma squeezed Hayley’s hand as they reached the doors. For a moment, they both hesitated.

  Hayley’s expression was grim. “Whatever happens next, we’re in this together.”

  They stepped inside, breathless and gasping.

  A heavy silence claimed the room silence, apart from the low, tinkling music coming through the speakers. Multicoloured light from the stained-glass ceiling windows spilled down as always but in this moment heightening the surreal look of the scene below.

  Bowls of food upturned.

  People lying everywhere, unmoving.

  Twisted limbs, fingers outstretched.

  Hayley spun around to Gemma, her skin ashen and mouth open in a silent scream.

  Too late.

  The people were all still—either dead or nearly dead.

  A woman moved from the deep shadows beside them, next to the wall.

  Sophie.

  Gemma recoiled. Sophie must have been standing there guarding the door in case anyone tried to leave.

  Sophie eyed them in shock. “What the hell? Where’s Tate?” She pulled out the gun from her waistband.

  “Tate’s dead,” Gemma told her. Her stomach clenched with fear and horror. Sophie and Freddy had already killed everyone. And now they’d kill them too.

  Sophie made a choked sound. “What about the others? Eoin and that Megan woman?”

  Hayley stared back with hate in her eyes. “Gone. And they called the police.”

  “Fuck.” Sophie’s breaths sounded fast and tight.

  Freddy strode into the room from the kitchen, gun raised. “They’re lying. We didn’t hear a car leave. I made sure to take all the car keys, to make doubly sure no one could get away on wheels. They didn’t call no one either. No landline phones here. And all the mobiles are in that basket. We’re safe.” His gaze flicked to Gemma and Hayley. “So, you two were just playing dead, huh? Shame it was all for nothing. Get up here to the kitchen. That's where you're goin' to die for real.”

  He still held the gun on them. It was all over. Gemma's knees weakened as she walked. They could have tried to escape the farm, but they'd made their choice.

  Sophie stepped behind them, her gun at their backs.

  A slight movement wavered in Gemma's side vision. Nearby, a girl lifted her head, just barely. Her face rigid with terror. Dharma. She mustn’t have eaten the food.

  “I only had a sip,” Dharma silently mouthed. Something caught Dharma's attention. and she turned her head to look directly up the hall towards the kitchen.

  Eoin was stealing up behind Freddy, a large kitchen knife gleaming in his hand.

  Gemma held her breath.

  Sophie noticed Dharma moving and then followed the direction of her gaze. “Freddy! Turn around!” she screamed, running forward.

  Freddy spun on his heel.

  Eoin charged at him.

  Jerking his gun up, Freddy shot twice. Eoin stumbled back and then collapsed in a thud that resonated through the hall.

  Gemma faced Hayley, exchanging frantic glances with her.

  “You weren’t supposed to shoot him!” Sophie raged at Freddy. “How are we going to explain someone being shot?”

  One of the workers roused slightly and groaned. It was Lucas—a guy who'd worn tie-dye T-shirts and his hair in a top knot every day that Gemma had ever seen him. Greenish vomit trickled down his chin.

  Cursing, Freddy stepped across the bodies to Lucas. Sophie stood in a rigid pose, watching Freddy.

  Hayley eyed Gemma and pointed at the doorway. Gemma nodded briefly and then gestured at Dharma. This was their chance—their only chance—to get out of the hall.

  Dharma half rose from the floor, her eyes huge.

  Together with Hayley, Gemma edged across to the door's opening—Dharma running silently towards them.

  Freddy made a hard kick at Lucas's head. Lucas fell silent again.

  “Relax. Relax,” Freddy told Sophie. “We can still rescue this situation. We’ll put the guns in the girls’ hands after they’re dead. They’re crazy bitches, right? Went nuts and used guns as well as poison. It still fits. We’re still okay.” He exhaled a long, loud breath. “I’d better go round up that idiot psychologist. You stay here and stick with the plan. Make them eat poison. Not long until we're done here. Keep yourself together. Right?”

  Gemma focused on the open doorway. Run for it.

  “Don't even think of it, ladies.” Freddy's voice boomed through the hall.

  Gemma froze alongside Hayley, turning to look back over her shoulder.

  Freddy had his gun aimed, a stupid smile on his doughy face. “I never miss my target.”

  Sophie whirled around to them, her face bloodless as she marched to the doors and closed and bolted them. Freddy ran out through the kitchen.

  Waving her gun about, Sophie looked almost maniacal now. “What were you doing? We've got to stick to the plan.”

  Dharma grasped Gemma's shoulders, trembling, trying to balance herself, but swayed about like a drunk. Gemma held her weight as she sank to the floor.

  Sweat beaded on Dharma's forehead and temples, high spots of red in her cheeks. Gemma realised that Dharma wouldn't have been able to run to safety, even if they'd been able to escape the hall. The single sip she'd had of the soup must have been enough to make her very ill.

  “Sophie,” Dharma rasped in a shivery voice. “I don't understand… any of this. Freddy's making you do it, isn't he? He's gone crazy. Just… let us out of here.”

  “I can't,” Sophie replied tightly. “It's gone too far. I'm not going to be the one taking the blame for anything that's happened here today. No way in hell. We've got to see this out and stay with the plan.”

  Gemma took a bold step towards Sophie. “There's no plan anymore. Tate is dead. He took control of you ever since you started working for him, didn't he? Just like he took control over me. We can end that here.”

  Sophie shook her head, her thin lips twisting. “Tate didn't have control over me. Not for a single day.” Stepping over to a bowl of soup, she nudged it with her foot in Gemma's direction. “Time to have your lunch, girls.”

  43

  Bronwen

  At first, Bronwen couldn’t figure out what had changed as she drove through Llewellyn Farm, but then she realised it was the stillness. Her gaze trailed over the lush mango plantations, searching for the usual happy workers going about their day. Even though it was out of season for fruit picking, s
he expected to see at least a few employees milling around checking on the fields, but the entire place was deserted.

  “I don’t like this,” she said quietly, watching Joe nod his head out of the corner of her eye.

  But she didn’t slow down, despite her gut telling her to turn around and get out. What if Megan was hurt? What if the two girls needed her help? The stubborn part of her hungered to see this through to the very end. She was sick of the pressure from her super, sick of awkward and confrontational press conferences, sick of being blamed for not closing this case. She was sick of opening a newspaper to see her name alongside a picture of the Cold Room Killer. She wanted it over.

  Perhaps this was the end, now, and that was why all the hair was standing up on the back of her neck. She took a deep breath as she pulled the car into the carpark next to the glass mansion, but as she was exhaling, several loud cracks sounded out across the compound.

  “Fuck,” Joe exclaimed.

  Bronwen snatched the radio unit from the car to request backup as Joe opened the door. Swearing under her breath, Bronwen wrestled with her own door and hurried around the vehicle to join her partner, her weapon pulled from its holster.

  “Joe,” she whispered. “You know that was gunfire. Maybe we should wait for the backup?”

  “Megan,” he replied. And that one word was all she needed to hear. Megan wasn’t an officer like her or Joe, but she’d worked on the case and that made her one of them. They couldn’t leave one of their own in danger.

  Bronwen shook her head. “Fuck that bastard. Come on then. This way. The sound came from further away than the house. I think it was over there by those outbuildings.”

  Crouching low to the ground, Bronwen levelled her Glock, racked the slide, and surveyed the area as they moved quickly towards the shots. She tried not to think about having to use her weapon. Though she practiced and her aim was good, she’d only discharged once on duty, and that one time she’d missed her first shot at a drug addict as he’d run at her partner with a knife. On the second shot, she’d hit him in the chest, almost killing him. It wasn’t a memory she often allowed her mind to linger on, but now, as she headed towards danger, she couldn’t help but think about it again.

  Her old partner had been injured in the foray that time. What if something happened to Joe? No, don’t go there. Concentrate, she thought.

  There was no sound, not even a breeze, certainly no gunfire. The sun seemed to hang above them, relentless, uncovered. The back of her neck dampened, sweat trickling down behind her ears.

  Bronwen kept her sight on a long hall now less than ten feet away. Is this where the gun shots came from? She’d seen the plans of the farm during the search, and knew this particular structure was the food hall. With the rest of the farm deserted, it made sense that there were people inside. But there were no windows, only sky lights, which meant there was no way of checking who could be hiding in the building without opening a door.

  Glancing towards Joe to check he was ready to cover her, Bronwen edged towards the door of the hall, placed her hand on the handle, and pulled it down. It was locked.

  “Can you hear that?” she whispered. “Music.”

  Joe nodded, his face grim, lips pulled thin.

  The music was soft and tinkling, completely out of place considering the circumstances. How many of the backpackers could be in there? What about Llewellyn? Was he the one with the gun?

  “We need to take cover,” Bronwen whispered. She indicated a ute parked a few feet away. “Behind there?”

  He nodded in agreement.

  Neither of them turned their back on the hall as they moved away, treading carefully backwards. Bronwen felt the pattering of her heartbeat and heard her breath whistling through her nose. In one quick movement, she wiped the sweat from her forehead before placing her hand back on the Glock.

  Just as they reached the truck, Bronwen heard a noise coming from the side of the hall. Footsteps and another gun shot. She ducked down, running behind the vehicle to take cover, before slowly edging her head out to see what was going on.

  It was Megan, running for her life.

  “Megan, over here!” Bronwen yelled, lifting her gun ready to cover her friend if needed. Her teeth gritted hard together as she concentrated.

  “The soup,” Megan shouted, almost tripping over her feet. “They poisoned the food! Two guns. Tate is in—”

  Another shot sounded out, and Megan hit the ground. As her body fell, a jolt seized its way through Bronwen’s muscles. Before she even had time to process what had happened, Bronwen was racing out from behind the ute towards Megan, her eyes locked on the blood pooling in the gravel, finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

  Crack.

  Bronwen felt a thud and then heat in her left shoulder. She fell back, almost down to the ground. And then she saw a man coming towards her, his handgun raised. Bronwen lifted her own weapon, but it was too late. Another shot rang out. She flinched, waiting for the hit, but instead the man keeled over and slumped onto the gravel, blood blooming from a wound on his back. Bronwen gasped, trying desperately to get air back in her lungs. Her whole body was rigid and cold, and when she raised her hand it shook uncontrollably.

  “Bron!”

  She turned her head to see Joe hurrying towards her, his bulk moving faster than she’d ever seen. He dropped to his knees and examined her shoulder.

  “No. Megan.” Bronwen nodded her chin towards the psychologist who lay lifeless on the ground. “Bloody good shot, Joe.”

  He only grunted as he moved towards Megan, his fingers groping at her neck. Then he swore, and his head hung low.

  “She’s gone?”

  He nodded.

  It wasn’t fair. Megan hadn’t signed up for this. She was a psychologist, not an officer. She didn’t deserve to die like this. The sight of her dead friend breathed life into Bronwen’s rigid muscles. Tate Llewellyn and his cult needed to be stopped. She sucked in two long, deep breaths and pulled herself back together.

  “Megan said the food is poisoned. We have to get in. Llewellyn is going to kill them all.” She struggled to her feet and Joe got up to help her.

  “Not a chance, Bron. You’re injured. Megan’s dead. We need to wait for backup.”

  “Megan said there were two guns. You just shot one of the gunmen. That means there’s one armed person in there and two of us. My shoulder is hurt, but it’s my left arm and I can still lift my gun. Check it over, the bullet barely hit me.”

  Joe did as she said and nodded. “You’re right. It grazed the arm. It’s deep, though, Bron. You’re losing blood.” After fashioning a quick tourniquet using material from his shirt, he bent down to check on the man. “He’s dead.” He stood up, taking the gun and placing it in the holster for his service weapon. Then he shrugged. “Might need it.”

  Bronwen took her walkie-talkie and requested an ambulance, informing the station of Megan’s death. “There are people hurt inside the barn. The food has been poisoned. Kouros and I are going in.”

  She ignored the response, gestured for Joe to follow her, and began moving slowly around the side of the food hall.

  “We don’t know what kind of gun they have left,” she said. “Could be a shotgun or an automatic weapon. We could still be outgunned.”

  “Then we have to be quicker.”

  Joe sounded determined, and that helped Bronwen stay strong as she edged closer to the back door of the food hall. She tried to remember the blueprints of the farm to help her. Wasn’t there a kitchen inside the hall? There must be a large canteen-style kitchen for the staff to prepare food. Only this time, they had a Jonestown situation going on.

  There were sounds coming from inside. Carefully, Bronwen moved closer to the wall and took a moment to listen.

  Deep within she heard a woman’s voice yelling, “Eat it! Now!”

  Fuck. She had to act fast.

  “This is the police,” she shouted at the top of her voice. �
�Everybody out of the hall with your hands up.”

  They positioned themselves either side of the door. Quickly, Joe tested the handle. It was locked.

  Silence.

  Then. “We have hostages. We want a car, and we want to be allowed to leave.”

  Bronwen recognised the voice immediately. It was Sophie, the cool and collected receptionist who had brought her coffee on the day of the search. Now the pieces fell into place. Sophie was Llewellyn’s accomplice. Loyal to the cause. Perhaps she was armed too. But if Sophie and the man who killed Megan were armed, that must mean that Llewellyn didn’t have a gun. Had Megan been mistaken about the number of gunmen at the farm? Before she died, Megan had been about to say something about Llewellyn. Bronwen had assumed it was to tell her he was in the food hall with the others, but now she wasn’t sure. She turned to Joe, trying to decide on her next move, but he just shrugged.

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” Bronwen shouted back. “This is your last warning. Come out with your hands up.”

  Silence again. Her pulse thumped with adrenaline as she waited for a response. Time was ticking away, and with it, the opportunity to save the people inside the hall.

  “We need to get in there.” Joe moved closer to the door and raised his eyebrows. “I reckon I can kick it in.”

  She checked over the door, examining the hinges and the lock. It was a regular wooden door, a little worn, fairly old, like the building itself. The food hall was a converted barn with some of its original features. The structure wasn’t built for protection; it was a storage place. Maybe Joe was right. She nodded, and he took a few steps back to give himself a run up.

  Well, she’d been right about one thing. They were approaching the end of this case. After all the buildup over the passing weeks, this was how it was going to end—in a barn, with blood pouring out of her shoulder, her friend dead, her partner kicking in a door. What was behind that door? She sucked in a deep breath, ignored the pain in her shoulder and focused.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The lock gave away, and it swung inwards. Both Joe and Bronwen took cover on either side of the open doorway. A gun fired in their direction. Not an automatic weapon though. That was something. It sounded more like a handgun.