Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  He had killed them.

  “Don’t,” said Julia. “Don’t you dare, Blake. Their deaths are not on your hands. They’re his dead, not yours. You hear me? You were defending yourself.”

  “I know, but—”

  “But nothing. If you go down that road then you’re no good to me here, okay?”

  He nodded. She was right, it had been self-defence. Those men would have killed them—or at least tied them up and gagged them so that he could do the job. He shuttered his brain, thinking of that teenager punching him inside Adam’s apartment, sitting on his legs, pinning him down while he was stabbed.

  Two men down. Two of his disciples. Whatever lay ahead, at least those two wouldn’t be a part of it.

  “We should go upstairs,” he said. “Try to get Connor to sleep somewhere. I don’t know how long we have.”

  She offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. He grabbed the bucket of fuel and the nail gun, leading the way. Julia carried Connor down the landing while he lumbered back downstairs, collecting the machete, the Maglite, and the box of matches from the living room. He had to make a third trip for water and food, and by the time he’d climbed the stairs again he felt like a walking corpse.

  “Julia?” he said. She called back and he walked into the bedroom at the far end of the long landing—Alice’s room—to see her kneeling by the little wardrobe. She had dragged a quilt inside and lined it with some of their clothes. Connor was bundled up on top, as snug as a bug in a rug. The kid looked exhausted, his eyes heavy as Julia stroked his belly and whispered to him.

  “Thought he’d be safer in here,” she said, and Blake shuddered, trying not to think of Alice Nevill cowering inside. “Once he’s asleep we can shut the doors, he might not wake up.”

  “Yeah,” Blake said. He sat on the bed and closed his eyes. Sleep was right there again, ready to ambush him. He felt like it had thrown a canvas bag over his head and he slapped his cheeks gently to keep it away. He wasn’t sure how much later it was that Julia sat next to him, massaging her temples. Behind her, the wardrobe doors were almost closed, the sound of gentle snores purring out from inside.

  “You okay?” he asked, taking her hand. She held it tight.

  “Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she said, offering him a weak smile. “Hiding out inside a murder house, waiting for a bunch of killers to come get us. This is my idea of a perfect date.”

  He smiled back, and it was an honest one. She was right, the situation was horrific, so awful that it bordered on ludicrous. But compared to how he’d felt just a day ago it seemed like a strange kind of paradise. They were together, after all. Whatever happened tonight, at least he had his wife by his side, and his son.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Now?” he said, putting his arm around her and pulling her close. “All we can do is wait.”

  It turned out they didn’t have to wait for long.

  Julia heard it first. She lifted her head from Blake’s shoulder, tilting it to the side and listening intently. He was on the verge of asking what when his ears picked it up too, the distant grumble of an engine. It was like a dam had suddenly broken inside his chest, the flood of adrenaline almost paralysing him. He pushed himself out of his wife’s arms just so that he wouldn’t be rooted to the bed.

  He made sure the wardrobe door was closed before jogging down the landing to the master bedroom, Julia on his tail. He put his eye to the hole he’d made with the nail gun, staring into the night. The muffled moon threw a faint light onto the front garden and the driveway, nothing down there but a dead man. He kept watching, though, seeing a ghostly glow blur through the trees, getting brighter and closer. The engine roared as it gunned its way over the potholes, then it appeared.

  It was the UPS truck, lumbering up the track like a beast. Its headlights were on full beam, and as it turned towards the house they blinded Blake, forcing him to pull his head away. He blinked spots from his vision before putting his other eye to the hole. The van rocked to a halt in front of Julia’s car, idling. Blake couldn’t see a thing behind the night-drenched windshield.

  “Is it him?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah,” Blake said. “He’s just sitting there.”

  “He’ll be wary after the explosion. He knows we fight back.”

  What are you doing? Blake asked him, wondering if the man was watching him too, if he could somehow peer through the pinprick hole right into Blake’s thoughts.

  The driver’s door popped and squealed open, the loudest sound in the world. Somebody stepped out and looked up at the house. Blake couldn’t make out his face, though, because of the glare from the headlights. The passenger door opened too, the truck wobbling as somebody climbed out, somebody big.

  “I see him,” Blake said, feeling Julia touch his shoulder. “There’s just two of them. Wait…”

  Another smudge of light behind the trees. A car cruised around the bend in the track, thumping into a pothole. The tyres spun, the engine revving. After a few seconds, it fell silent.

  Fuck.

  Somebody climbed out of the driver’s side of the car, shouting something about the mud. It looked like the locksmith.

  “There’s another one,” Blake said. Please, no more.

  The two back doors of the car opened, men unfolding themselves from inside. The passenger door was the last, a figure clambering out and unleashing a giggle of lunatic excitement. All four of them walked to the van, joining the first two. Blake swallowed hard.

  “There’s six of them,” he whispered.

  “Six?” said Julia. “Blake, we can’t…”

  One of the men opened the back doors of the van and Blake expected to see more figures pour out. He almost choked with relief when one of the men climbed inside instead—until he jumped down into the mud again with something clenched in his hands. Blake couldn’t make out what it was until it caught the moonlight, gleaming wickedly.

  A knife. A big knife.

  The other guys did the same, picking weapons from the van—knives, a bat, a sledgehammer or maybe an axe, other tools that Blake couldn’t even identify. When the delivery guy appeared, he was holding something that might have been a shotgun, but it couldn’t be, could it? It couldn’t be.

  One by one they walked in front of the truck—the locksmith, the delivery guy, a kid who didn’t look older than seventeen, an ugly man with an angular body and a shaven head, a man in that same fucking Arsenal cap, the peak pulled down over his face. They looked like a Wild West posse, or like something out of Frankenstein, an angry mob. Only these guys weren’t angry, they were laughing, whooping, jeering.

  “Jesus,” said Julia as their calls cut through the walls.

  The group moved aside, parting like the Red Sea as a man walked between them. He came to a halt in front of them all, towering over them. The light from the truck spilled past him, making him darker than he had any right to be. It was like somebody had torn a giant-sized hole in reality. Then he turned a fraction and his face came into sight, flooded with shadow. His arms stretched to his sides and he stood there like a man on the cross. His disciples had fallen quiet, but Blake could see them panting like wolves, clutching their weapons in white-knuckled fingers.

  “Blake Barton,” the man roared. “Your time is up. Six days, six hours, six minutes. I told you I would come to kill you, and I told you what would happen if you tried to fight.”

  It was bullshit. The only reason the man had found them was because they’d wanted to be found. He was showboating in front of his pathetic entourage. Blake clenched the nail gun in his hand, wondered if he could hit the man from up here. The image of him suddenly howling and clutching at his forehead was impossibly funny and Blake actually snorted.

  “Are you laughing?” Julia whispered.

  “Your time is up, Blake,” the man said, his voice surely too loud, seeming to ride into the house on a wave of cold wind. “But even the devil can have mercy. Come out here. Come kneel before me and accept your deat
h. If you do, I will let your wife and son live.”

  He considered it for an instant, and no more. He thought of Elizabeth, clutching her bags and pleading with her children to hurry as she opened the door. This is what she would have seen—the man and his legion waiting for her in her front garden. She’d opened the door onto hell.

  Blake took a breath, ready to scream something back at them. He held it in, though, not willing to give away their position.

  “What’s he doing?” Julia asked.

  “Waiting,” Blake said.

  It had to have been a full minute before the man spoke again.

  “Then you have ended them too. Go, bring them to me.”

  The devil flicked out his fingers, and let slip his dogs of war.

  Fifty-Eight

  “They’re splitting up.”

  Blake watched the men bound away from their master, baying like hounds. Two ran to the side, heading for the barn. Two came straight for the house, fast. The devil man didn’t move, the shit-eating delivery guy remaining by his side. Even against the glare from the headlights Blake could see the expression on their faces, their grins so big they seemed to split the night.

  “They’re coming,” Blake said, pulling himself away from the window. Suddenly his head was utterly empty, stripped clean. He looked at Julia and he knew—knew without a shadow of a doubt—that she would die tonight. They both would, and their son would die with them. They would join the ghosts that already roamed this house. He gripped the nail gun, wondering if he should use it right now. One through Julia’s skull, one through Connor’s, one through his own. Better that way, better to go out together and leave the devil with nothing.

  Julia took his shaking hand and held it tight.

  “They’re just men,” she said, looking him right in the eye. “Stupid fucking men. We can do this. Which way are they coming?”

  They answered for her, the sound of an axe on wood coming from downstairs. Somebody was trying to cleave through the board over the front door. That was good, it would take time.

  “What about the side?” Julia said.

  “Watch the stairs,” he whispered. “I’ll check.”

  Blake pushed past her, out onto the landing, running for the spare room. He eased himself onto his knees, peeking through the loose board. The two men who’d run this way had split up, one of them scurrying through the open door of the barn, the other one—the skinhead—jogging leisurely down the side of the house. His feet scuffed the path and he stopped right beneath the window, so close that Blake could hear him breathing, could hear him sniff. He was in his twenties, his hair shaved almost to the bone, his scalp pocked with old scabs. His face was a mess of angles, covered in dirt.

  He looked up, and Blake ducked back so fast that pain clawed up from the wound in his side. He clutched it, thinking he didn’t see me, he didn’t see me. There was a rattle from outside as the man checked the gate. The axe blows were hammering the boards at the front of the house—more than one of them now. How long would it take them to get inside?

  The man below grunted, and there was the unmistakable sound of somebody climbing. He was scaling the fence, going for the window. Blake gripped the nail gun. Skinhead would have to stretch to reach the sill. Blake could wait here and shoot him as soon as his ugly face appeared. But then he might fall, and the others would know for sure that Blake was inside.

  He backed across the room, careful not to trip on the ladder.

  “He’s coming in,” he hissed. Julia was talking but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  A hand appeared, gripping the edge of the window. Blake retreated through the door just as the man’s head rose into sight, those beady eyes scanning the room.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  Blake moved down the long landing, away from Julia—towards Alice’s bedroom, towards Connor. The light was off and he crouched down in the darkness, his heart machine-gunning in his throat. He thought he was going to throw up and he swallowed hard to keep everything in his stomach. Why hadn’t they planned it better? What the fuck were they doing?

  There was the sound of something heavy falling onto the floor of the spare room, a clatter of feet, then the grate of metal on wood. Seconds later a lanky shape peeled itself from the door, sniffing. Skinhead looked to the side, right at Alice’s room, his eyes moving over Blake like dirty fingers. Blake tensed so hard he almost fired the nail gun into the floor, but it was dark enough down here to render him invisible.

  Something crunched in the master bedroom. The man’s head twisted around, but not before Blake saw his thin lips slice open into a smile. He stalked down the landing, a huge hammer clutched in his right fist, moving to where Julia was hiding.

  No.

  Blake pushed himself up, taking a step. He wasn’t quiet, but the sound of axes on wood from downstairs masked him. He moved fast, halfway down the landing by the time the guy entered the bedroom. Skinhead laughed, the sound like two rocks being rubbed together.

  “You found me,” said Julia from inside the room. “What now?”

  Blake moved to the door, leaning into the master bedroom. Skinhead was right in front of him, and past him, standing by the foot of the bed, was Julia. She must have seen Blake, but she didn’t take her eyes off the guy as he walked towards her. He pointed the hammer at her.

  “Come on,” he said. “Downstairs.”

  “Fucking make me,” said Julia, not even blinking.

  Blake took a step into the room, lifting the nail gun like a pistol, lining it up with the back of the man’s head. He pulled back the safety slide and tensed his grip on the trigger.

  From downstairs came the sound of wood splitting, a howl of sick delight that echoed through the house. They were in.

  Skinhead turned towards the sound and found Blake instead. His grin slid away.

  “Fuck!” the man said.

  Blake fired, the nail going wide and ricocheting off the wall above the window. The man moved like lightning, the hammer sweeping in a wide arc and ripping the nail gun from his grip, sending it clattering into the wall. Then it was moving up again, right for Blake’s face. He fell onto his backside, an atomic blast of pain detonating in his side as he scooted through the door onto the landing.

  Skinhead took a step after him, but an arm curled around his throat—Julia on his back. There was a glint of metal and the guy roared, clutching at his neck as she stabbed him with the hypodermic. It must have hit bone, bouncing out of her grip. He staggered, throwing an elbow and catching Julia in the ribs. She tumbled onto the bed, thumping down on the other side.

  “You bitch,” Skinhead said, all teeth.

  He went for her, striding around the side of the bed, the hammer raised above his head.

  Blake scrabbled back into the room on his hands and knees, grabbed for the nail gun. He didn’t stand, he just aimed, fired, missed. He took a breath, fired again, the nail pinging harmlessly off the man’s shoulder.

  Growling, Blake stood and threw himself across the room. He thrust the nail gun like he was trying to punch the man with it, firing a shot right into the side of his face.

  The skinhead screamed, staggering back with his hand to his face, his eyes almost popping out of his skull. He tried to say something, but the nail must have done something to his tongue because he could only gargle.

  “Eeeere!” he yelled, blood leaking through his fingers. “Ay’re eeere!”

  Then he doubled over and vomited, spraying puke over himself and the bed.

  Julia was back on her feet, a kitchen knife in her hand this time. She slid it into him with a surgeon’s precision, straight through the side of his neck. He squealed as he grabbed for it, his tongue jutting from his mouth, blood hitting the wall and the ceiling with unbelievable force.

  The man lifted the hammer, but Blake leaned in and cracked the nail gun against his temple—snap. He did it again, not aiming but somehow finding the bridge of his nose as he turned around—snap snap. The man fell back i
nto the wall, swinging the hammer wildly, blindly. Julia attacked again, sliding the knife into his throat. How the hell was he still moving?

  There were shouts now from downstairs, the sound of furniture being upended, of things being smashed. They would be up here in seconds.

  Blake ran to the man, knocking away his arm and putting the nail gun against his head. He fired, this nail penetrating the skull and impaling the flesh of his brain. The guy dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, twitching obscenely on the floor.

  “Oh god,” said Julia, smudging his blood from her face with her free hand. “Oh god.”

  Blake tried to speak but he choked on his words. He took her hand and dragged her from the room. They retreated down the landing, heading for the back of the house. They’d got as far as the spare room before Blake remembered the bucket of petrol, breaking free of Julia to collect it from the top of the stairs. It sloshed over his feet as he carried it into the darkness of Alice’s bedroom.

  “Oh god, Blake,” Julia said, her teeth chattering.

  Connor was still asleep, which was good. At least his cries wouldn’t draw them. Something had, though, because one of the men was coming up the stairs.

  “Peekaboo,” a voice called out, thick with delight. “I found you.”

  A man appeared, a boy—the kid who didn’t look like he’d had his eighteenth birthday yet. His face was covered with a shaggy quilt of blonde hair. He held a hatchet in one hand, big and cruel and rusted, like it had been well used. He wiped his nose with his free hand, sniffing, scanning the hallway with big, baby blue eyes.

  In the wardrobe behind Blake, Connor stirred, mumbling something.

  He felt Julia shift, heard her open the door and whisper to their son, trying to lull him back to sleep. Ahead, the boy was strolling eagerly down the landing. He passed the door to the master bedroom without looking inside, gripping the hatchet with both hands. The nail gun sat heavy in Blake’s sweaty fist and he flexed his fingers, trying to get some feeling back into them.