by Tim Weaver
The bullet.
Sliding out the empty clip, I slotted the bullet into it and pushed the clip back into the Beretta.
Slowly, I edged out from the chimney flue. Held the gun up in front of my face. Slid along the floor on my knees. A shiver passed through me. Ahead of me, on the landing, I could see zigzags of snow, compacted, fallen from the soles of his shoes. I moved along the floorboards, churned up by the gunfire.
As I closed in on the doorway, I tried to angle the gun towards the sliver of wall that joined the two bedrooms. Legion had hidden there while he was reloading – but he wasn’t there now. I looked right to the bathroom, then left to the top of the stairs. Shadows were everywhere, but I couldn’t make him out. That meant there was only one place he could be.
Next door. The room with the rings.
I kept close to the wall as I approached the door. Held the Beretta as straight as I could. My hands turned red as I squeezed the handle. The muscles in my arms tightened, the veins in my wrists prominent through the skin. An image flashed in my head of Legion sitting in the corner of the room, opening fire as I tried to get in the first shot. I hesitated. Stopped short of the door.
Then, suddenly, I could smell him.
There was no aftershave overpowering his stench now. All I could smell was decay, as if death were
I peered around the door a fraction, my eyes darting from one corner to the next. I thought I could see him, half-covered by darkness, directly across from me.
Then it felt like I got hit by a train.
I hadn’t seen Andrew coming. Hadn’t even thought about it. But the impact sent me flying, my knees leaving the floor, the gun dropping from my grasp. I looked up to see him clutching a table leg. I went for the gun – an automatic reaction, even though it was too far away – but he hit me again, low in the ribs.
I screamed out.
Instinct kicked in: I tried to gain some purchase on the floorboards, tried to crawl away so I could gain some distance, but my fingers slipped and he hit me again, in the ankles. I yelled out in pain as a paralysing tremor hummed up my leg. Then a third blow: in the small of my back, and this time I could feel my skin break beneath the cling film.
He stopped. Looked down at me. His black clothes made him seem bigger in the semi-darkness. More powerful. As he stepped into what little light there was left, in his face I could see regret. Maybe even a little mercy.
‘I understand,’ he said, gently, and dropped to his haunches beside me. ‘I understand how you feel. How desperate you must be to get her back.’
Hauling myself on to all fours, I started towards it.
But Andrew was on his feet again. He took one step in my direction and smashed the table leg into the same spot as before: the small of my back, right where one of the wounds had opened up.
I yelled out and collapsed on to my stomach.
There was silence for a moment. He was watching me, seeing if I was going to try to make a move again. When I didn’t, through the corner of my eye, I saw him drop down for a second time, but further away, so I couldn’t make contact.
‘After I got out of prison,’ he said, turning the table leg in his hands, ‘my parole officer found me a job teaching kids how to play football at a youth club. He knew the people who ran it. The first evening I turned up there, the guy in charge pulled me aside and said, “I know you’ve got a record. You’re just a favour for a friend, so if you mess up once, even if it’s forgetting to tell me we’re out of orange squash, you’re finished.” I got twenty pounds cash in hand, and was claiming every week as well. When Sunday came round, I had nothing. The temptation to steal, the temptation to claw it back, whoever I hurt, was immense.’
I looked across the landing, to the Beretta.
I glanced at him.
‘Just give me an excuse, David. I can’t wait to see what your face looks like as it leaks through the floorboards.’
I closed my eyes. Tried to memorize the layout of the building. Tried to recall anything I could use as a makeshift weapon.
He started talking again.
‘Prison was tough,’ he continued, and I opened my eyes and watched him. ‘So, I didn’t want to go back. And, anyway, about five months after I started there, everything changed. I got talking to the mum of one of the boys. He’d had leukaemia, but it was in remission. And the way she spoke about him, about the love she had for him, it just absolutely stopped me dead. When I found out she was on her own, I asked her out – even before I knew her name. She was the one who first took me to church. She was how I found my faith.’
He stood. Looked down at me.
‘Charlotte,’ he said.
There was a long pause as he stared at me.
‘We’d been seeing each other for about two years when her son’s leukaemia came back. I’d already moved in with them by then and had a job. Everything in my life was perfect. But when Charlotte found out the disease had come back, something just turned off in her, as if she knew this time it wasn’t going until it took her boy with it.’
‘I came home three months after he passed away and she was lying beneath the surface of the water in the bath. She’d overdosed on sleeping pills.’
He gripped the table leg harder, both hands wriggling to get a better grip.
‘That was when I came up with the idea for this place. A place to help people start again. To leave behind the memories, everything they wish they could forget. I went to the bank and they turned me down on the spot. But eventually, a few months later, someone cared enough to help me out.’
I shook my head.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he said.
I turned my head, pain shooting down the centre of my back.
‘You’re not helping anyone.’
He paused. Watched me.
Then, suddenly, he moved, hitting out at me with the table leg. It caught me in the chin.
‘Fuck!’
My head hit the floor, blood in my mouth, on my lips, across my face. White spots flashed in front of my eyes. I was disorientated, unable to make anything out.
‘You of all people should understand what I’m trying to do!’ he screamed from behind me, his voice trembling with rage.
I looked for him, but my vision was still blurred. One doorway became the next. He’d moved back. Briefly faded into the night.
built for people like you!’
Then he emerged from the darkness and leaned into me.
‘And it’s not going to stop now.’
His face shifted back into focus.
‘You’re not going to stop me, David.’
He raised the table leg above his head. His grip tightened, his teeth clenched. I curled up into a ball, protecting myself.
But the final blow never came.
A dull thud sounded.
Andrew staggered sideways, clutching his head.
At the top of the stairs behind him was Alex. He turned and punched a piece of the table up into Andrew’s guts. The air hissed out of him. He doubled over, clutching his stomach.
Alex struck again.
This time he pounded the chunk of wood into the base of Andrew’s spine. The tall man stumbled forward and fell to the floor, his legs giving way under him like a deer shot down in a hunt. A fourth and fifth blow came, a chunk of wood splintering this time, breaking at the sheer force of the blow. It spun off into the bathroom and landed among the glass.
Alex briefly glanced at me, and then kicked Andrew in the face. More blood, spraying out over the wall behind him; over the carpet. Then he kicked him again. And again. And again. Gradually, Andrew’s eyes glazed over and all that came after were sounds without reaction: skin splitting; bones breaking. No grunts. slapping sound, like raw meat being tenderized.
‘Alex,’ I said.
He stopped, panting heavily, and looked around towards me, across to the room with the rings, to my gun, and to the blood on my clothes.
He came across and helped me up, lacing his a
rms through mine. My balance was affected. My body felt like it might fall apart. He guided me back towards Room A. I went straight for the gun, grasping it as tightly as I could. Once we were inside, hidden by the darkness, I brought his head towards me.
‘Legion,’ I whispered, pointing towards the wall that divided the two bedrooms. I could see in his face he got it immediately. Dread rose to the surface.
Click.
We both turned, looking towards Andrew. But the noise had come from the room with the rings.
Click.
Click.
‘Oh, shit,’ Alex said. ‘He’s coming.’
Alex turned to me. ‘You need to use me,’ he whispered, glancing towards the door. ‘You need to pretend you will kill me.’
‘What?’
He stood up. I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back down.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
He looked at me. ‘They can’t kill me.’
‘They can.’
‘They can’t.’
‘They can kill you, Alex.’
‘Grab hold of me and follow me out on to the landing,’ he said.
‘What? Are you fucking crazy?’
‘Do it,’ he said, and looked me square in the eyes. ‘Put a gun to my head and walk me through. When you see him, threaten to kill me.’
‘You must be out of your fucking mind.’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Trust me.’
I looked at him.
‘Please, David. Trust me.’
He got to his feet so his back was to me. I looked up at him, waiting for him to turn around. Waiting to see the fear in his eyes. But he didn’t look down. He
‘Do it,’ he said.
‘He will kill you, Alex.’
‘He won’t,’ he said, fiercely this time.
He remained still, looking out on to the landing. I stood and inched in close to him so Legion wouldn’t have a clear shot at me. Then we began to move forward. The floorboards creaked beneath our feet. Alex’s shoes kicked up splintered wood and shattered pieces of glass. We stepped out on to the landing, briefly sliding in Andrew’s blood. And then we turned right and edged into the room with the rings, little by little, every footstep feeling heavier.
Further and further into the lair.
‘I’ll kill him,’ I said, staring into the darkness. All around us was the night, hanging from the walls and the windows like blankets. I looked from corner to corner, pressing the gun into the back of Alex’s head. ‘If it’s him or me, I swear I’ll kill him.’
A half-step towards the centre of the room.
‘I swear.’
There was no reply. No movement.
‘Are you listening to me?’
I glanced left and right.
‘I’ll kill him, I promise you.’
My eyes adjusted a little more. Shapes started to emerge from the corner of the room. An uneven floorboard. The hole in the wall with the message help me. The rings. The water running down the brickwork.
More shapes.
‘Answer me.’
We shuffled further forward.
‘Answer me.’
Click.
A gun cocked behind me and, before we had a chance to turn, I felt it at the back of my neck. The end of the barrel pushed in against the top of my spine.
Legion had tricked us. He’d moved to the shadows on the stairs while Alex and I had been forming a plan in the next room.
‘Cockroach,’ he said quietly.
‘I’ll kill him.’
He pushed the gun in harder.
‘You’re not a killer, cockroach.’
‘Put your gun down,’ I said, pushing back against his gun’s muzzle.
‘No.’
‘Put it down.’
The same tone, the same control: ‘No.’
‘Put your gun down now.’
In the blink of an eye his head was at my ear. I could feel the mask brush against the side of my face. His smell. His hot breath passing through the holes in the plastic.
‘No,’ he said again.
‘I’ve got a gun against his head,’ I said slowly. ‘Do you want to take that chance?’
‘You’re a fucking cockroach, you know that?’
‘Put it down.’
‘You belong in the dirt.’
‘Put the fucking gun down.’
The gun pressed harder against the back of my head, digging in against the curve of my skull. It felt like he was weighing up his options.
‘You’ve got three seconds,’ I said.
The gun didn’t move.
‘One.’
Nothing.
‘Two.’
I cocked the Beretta.
‘Thr–’
With one last push of the barrel, I heard glass crunch beneath his feet as he stepped back, the gun going with him.
I swivelled, so hard Alex almost stumbled, and looked across at Legion. He was standing in the doorway. The gun was at his side, a second one – what looked like a SIG Sauer P250 – in his belt. His sleeves were rolled up, the tattoos creeping out from underneath. His eyes were fixed on me, peering through the eyeholes. Blinking slowly. His tongue came through the mouth slit, and moved along it, making a cutting sound on the plastic. There was some blood close to his right shoulder, but he hardly seemed to notice.
‘Put it down,’ I said, nodding at the submachine gun.
‘I’ll put a bullet through his face, I promise you that.’
He looked at me, at Alex, then back to me. Maybe he didn’t believe I would kill Alex. If you’re a killer, you wear it – like a cut that doesn’t heal. He could see I didn’t wear it. But maybe he’d heard about what I’d done to their people before. So he knew, if I had to, I could kill. If it came to that, it would be them before me.
‘You want me to start counting again, you fucking freak?’
His eyes narrowed inside the mask. Then his hand opened and the submachine gun dropped to the floor. Glass scattered as it turned over and came to rest.
‘Now the other one,’ I said, my eyes snapping to his belt.
He paused, then placed a hand on top of the SIG. His fingers slid down the side, like insect legs, one moving in against the trigger, the others in around the grip. Wriggling. Long, grey stalks; dirt and blood under the nails. I shifted the Beretta sideways, from Alex’s neck across his shoulder. I aimed at Legion’s head. His eyes flicked down to the gun and back up to me, and he slid the SIG out from his trousers, held it out in front of him and dropped it to the floor. It hit the ground with a clunk.
‘I can taste your fear, cockroach.’
I nodded, as if I barely heard him. But every word out of his mouth was like the end of a knife blade. He lived off any flicker of fear. Even with both guns on the floor, he was still dangerous.
I expected to have to repeat myself but he did it straight away. That instantly worried me. Everything else had been a struggle. Now he was sending his weapons across to me, out of reach, without even pausing for thought.
‘Put your hands behind your head.’
He snorted, and instead moved his hands up to his mask and slowly lifted it away from his face. I felt Alex shift a little in front of me. The devil tossed his mask away. He blinked, his eyes fixed on me, and ran a hand across the top of his shaved head. And then he smiled, his mouth widening, his tongue pushing through his lips. Running across them. Tasting them.
‘I’m gonna eat you.’
‘Put your hands behind your head.’
He smiled again. But he did what I asked, sliding his hands behind his head. Too easy again. Something was up. I’d forgotten something. Missed something. What had I missed?
‘Turn around,’ I said.
Legion picked up on something in my voice. Another smile broke out on his face. ‘What’s the matter, cockroach?’
‘Turn around.’
‘You scared?’
‘Turn around.’
His eyes widened, like
huge holes in his head, sucking in the darkness from the room. I felt myself losing control.
sssssssssscared?’ he said quietly, menacingly.
‘Shut up and turn arou–’
He swung then, a sudden bloom of movement, pulling a knife out from somewhere behind his back. The handle was small, but the blade was long, slightly curved, glinting even in the gloom. He brought the knife out in front of him, a blur that moved from his waist, and slashed across Alex’s chest. Alex stumbled backwards, knocking me off balance.
Legion lunged forward again, further this time, flipping the knife and jabbing the butt into Alex’s temple. Alex staggered sideways, his legs giving way. I could see a long, thin, shallow tear in his clothes. There was no blood, but it had torn though his top like paper.
He moved in a third and final time and punched the knife’s handle into the side of Alex’s head again. Alex lost his footing completely and tumbled to his left – pulling me down with him. At first, as everything shattered around me, I couldn’t understand why he’d done it. Why he’d grabbed me too. Then, as he crashed to the floor and rolled over on top of me, I could see what he was doing. He was protecting me. Legion couldn’t go through him.
He came towards us, the knife out in front of him. I was still too close to Alex for him to get careless, so he stabbed the blade into the floor next to my ear. Trying to force a reaction movement from me, away from Alex. But I couldn’t move. I was trapped beneath Alex. He rammed a foot into Alex’s face and the back
I could see Legion again, bent over, dragging Alex across the room. Legion’s hooded top was hoisted up across his back. Criss-crossing between his shoulder blades was a leather strap. A knife sheath was perched three-quarters of the way up his spine, empty now.
When he was done, he turned back to face me, eyes flashing. He flipped the knife, the blade now an extension of his palm, and came across the room at me.
I got on to all fours and looked for the nearest gun. It was Legion’s SIG, about five feet to my left. I threw myself towards it as he jumped on my back, his knee cracking against the base of my spine, just below the scourge marks. I hit the floor face first. We slid across the floorboards, glass scattering. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a tattooed arm pinning me down by the neck. The other raising the knife above his head.
