The Family Man

by T. J. Lebbon

  ‘What’d you see?’

  ‘Something moved. Over there, through the trees.’

  ‘Rose!’ Dom said. But she was already with them, slipping through the bedroom door and crossing the room almost soundlessly. She carried a pistol in one hand, shotgun in the other. She looked formidable.

  ‘They came through the gate a few minutes ago,’ she said. ‘Must have left whatever vehicle they’re using down by the entrance. Mary is approaching up the road, quite brazen. Trying to draw us out. Who did you see?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Emma said. ‘It might have been Lip.’

  ‘You trust Andy on his own?’ Dom asked Rose.

  ‘He wants the same as us,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. I’m keeping an eye on him.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t want any witnesses?’ Emma asked, verbalising a fear that had been gnawing at Dom. He’d done his best to deny it, hating the images it presented. But nothing would have surprised him about Andy now.

  ‘I’ve met a lot of bad people,’ Rose said. ‘He’s not like that.’

  ‘I can never trust him again,’ Dom said.

  ‘Good. Don’t blame you. But I’m pretty sure he’s not planning to put a bullet in the back of your head, Dom.’

  ‘What about yours?’ he asked.

  Rose glanced at him strangely, then eased forward so she could see from the window.

  ‘What do we do?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Look after your little girl. Can you handle this?’ She offered Emma the shotgun.

  Emma nodded and took the weapon. ‘What now?’

  Rose glanced from the window again. Lithe, tensed like a big cat about to strike, she grew incredibly still. ‘They’re coming. Hallway. Now.’

  Dom grabbed Daisy’s hand and followed Emma out of the room, just as the whole world exploded around them.

  At first he thought they were going at the lodge with axes and sledgehammers. Holes were punched in walls, splintered wood and dust spat around, timber boarding split with a harsh crack! He soon realised they were gunshots. Behind the sounds of destruction around them he heard the snap-snap of gunfire, and he fell onto Daisy in the internal hallway, him and Emma huddling around her to protect her from the terrible violence.

  The lodge was constructed in a block pattern, the central hallway feeding bedrooms and bathrooms on either side. They were lucky that they had an interior windowless space to hide in. But Dom had a feeling that luck would not last.

  From close by he heard heavy gunshots as Rose returned fire. There were three, evenly spaced and very deliberate. He worried that she didn’t have much ammunition. When she’d been explaining what she wanted of them, she’d seemed to avoid the subject of what weapons she carried.

  She had given Andy his pistol back. For now it remained silent.

  ‘Dad!’ Daisy whispered. ‘I’m scared!’

  ‘Me too, honey.’ He caught Emma’s eye. They both grinned. It was at the ridiculousness of this, the sheer disbelief. Then a bullet shattered a framed print above them, showering them with glass, and the grins fell away.

  More gunshots erupted from the room they’d just left, and then Rose fell back through the doorway. She crawled right over them, elbows and knees punching and prodding.

  ‘What is it?’ Dom asked.

  ‘Lip coming around the back,’ she said. ‘They’ve got bigger artillery than us.’

  ‘We’ve got shelter,’ Emma said.

  ‘Made of wood.’ Rose crawled towards the bedroom at the end of the short hallway. As she shoved the door open she rolled onto her side, brought the gun up, and fired.

  Rose had fought battles against the odds before. It made her sharper. But this time they were stacked, not just in numbers but in geography and weaponry. The lodge had at least ten windows in five or six rooms, too many for them to cover. The Scotts were using an assault shotgun, pistols and a Kalashnikov. Even Lip must have been wielding a gun, though she guessed he’d have preferred killing them all with a chunk of wood or a fucking squirrel.

  Freak. Bastard. That’s what kept her going, the idea that she was not a freak, not a bastard. She was doing her best for these people, mostly innocent, completely naive. She wasn’t sure exactly what that made her.

  As she shoved the bedroom door open with her left hand she saw the shadow at the window. The glass was shattered, frame fractured, and Lip was already halfway inside. He was looking at her, expressionless in this cacophony of violence.

  She dropped, rolled onto her right side, brought the gun up to bear and fired.

  Lip fired at the same time. She hadn’t noticed a weapon, and she cursed herself for that. She had trained herself to catch a snapshot of a scene and to then decode and understand everything it contained. On occasions such as this it had saved her life more than once.

  Lips’s lifeless eyes had drawn and distracted her.

  The bullet parted her spiked hair and impacted the door frame above her head.

  Lip shouted and fell back out.

  Grenade! she thought. But she’d left it in the door pocket of the Megane. Stupid. It just showed how unprepared she was, and how rattled at Holt’s disappearance.

  Rose aimed at the wall below the window and fired three times. There were no more shouts, and she wasn’t sure she’d hit him the first time. He might be lying there dead, or he might have crawled aside, looking for another way in. Either way, she had to push the advantage.

  She scurried across the bedroom around the foot of the double bed, and sat against the wall to the left of the window.

  More gunshots sounded from the front of the lodge. She heard Andy return fire, two careful shots. Good. He was conserving ammunition, and that would matter. If the Scotts knew how little ammunition she actually carried, they could simply hold back and shoot them into submission.

  The clock was ticking. Deserted though the holiday park was, someone would hear the shooting. The police would come. Armed response would already be close following the shooting at the Helmsman, and then it would be over for all of them. Any agonising with Dom and Emma about how to proceed would be decided for them.

  As would Holt’s fate.

  Rose took a deep breath and looked through a bullet hole in the wall. The view was narrow, but she could see no movement, and no sign of anyone huddled against the other side.

  He’d be going for another window.

  Crouched, she ran back into the hallway.

  Just in time to hear a sustained burst of gunfire, and look along the hallway to see the front door swing open.

  ‘Kitchen!’ Emma said to Dom. ‘Units there, cooker, better protection.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And there are knives,’ Daisy said.

  The bullet impacts seemed to have lessened. As they crawled through into the open-plan living area, Dom saw Andy lying beside the sofa. For a moment he thought he was dead, but then Andy made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, smiling. Smiling. He was enjoying this.

  Movement drew Dom’s attention. A shadow shifted across a large window at one side of the living area. As he pointed, and Andy knelt to turn that way, Mary appeared in the window.

  She was carrying an AK-47, easily recognisable from countless news reports. She opened up, spraying the room, twitching right as soon as she saw Dom and his family. The noise was awful.

  Dom kicked, shoving his feet back and connecting with the wall, pushing Emma and Daisy ahead of him as hard as he could. The floor was cheap laminated wood, shiny and smooth, and the units they slid behind absorbed most of the bullets. Crockery exploded inside, pans rang with the impacts.

  Something hit Dom in the side. He grunted, winded, and pulled himself closer to Daisy, shielding her with his body. He quickly checked his side, terrified at what he’d find. But there was no blood.

  A door was knocked from a base unit, swinging aside and spewing shattered chinaware across the floor. Emma thrust the shotgun into the cupboard and pulled the trigger, firing at Mary through the fractured wood
. After one shot she tried again, but for some reason the shotgun was no longer working. Maybe it was jammed, or perhaps she wasn’t as familiar with these weapons as she’d believed.

  Dom grabbed her arm and pulled her away. She dropped the shotgun and they huddled together, instinctively ensuring that Daisy was sandwiched between them.

  Someone screamed. The kitchen light, which Dom had intentionally left on, dimmed and flickered, and he knew that the front door had just been opened.

  Using bits from what Rose had called her box of tricks, he had wired the metal handle directly into the fuse box, setting a rudimentary wire circuit connector that would work when the door was opened three inches, electrocuting whoever opened it.

  The shooting ceased. The air was now filled with that awful, high scream.

  Dom peered over the worktop.

  The front door was half-open. Sonja held onto the handle, quivering as electricity pulsed through her. She stared at her hand as if willing it to let go, but it would not obey. Muscles in her neck and face stood out like cords. Her left eyeball began to smoke.

  Mary was no longer at the window. Maybe she was taking advantage of the distraction to enter the lodge from elsewhere, but Dom thought not. Her mother was being cooked alive from the inside out.

  ‘Where is she?’ Emma asked from beside him. She snapped up the shotgun again and stretched it across the worktop, also looking at Sonja. ‘Where’s—?’

  Andy knelt, aimed, and shot Sonja twice in the chest. The impact knocked her back off the timber-decked porch and onto the gravelled ground. The air smelled of burned hair and cooking meat.

  Andy did not move. Dom saw him breathing hard and fast, but from the side he couldn’t quite make out his expression.

  He had just killed his own mother.

  ‘Noooooo!’ The scream was horrible, unrestrained, and Mary ran into view, kneeling beside Sonja and cradling her head. Dom saw burned skin slough from her face.

  Andy aimed again. Dom heard the click of his empty gun.

  So did Mary.

  ‘You fucking bastard!’ she shouted, scooping up her assault rifle, leaping over their mother’s body, and coming for them all.

  From deeper in the lodge Dom heard a heavy impact and the sounds of a struggle. Lip’s in! he thought. Help would not come from Rose.

  He and Emma stood at the same time. Emma wielded the jammed shotgun as a club, Dom had snatched up a kitchen knife. As Mary reached the front doorway Emma threw the shotgun, hard. It span end over end and struck her on the left shoulder.

  Mary gasped and tried to bring her gun up to bear, but the impact must have deadened her arm.

  Andy launched himself at her, pistol raised in his hand. They met hard, breath knocked from bodies, fists flying, the violence shocking and confusing.

  ‘Grab Daisy and get to the car!’ Dom said to Emma, then dashed into the hall. He feared that Rose was already dead.

  But if she was, there was no reason for Lip to be battering her like he was.

  Rose had seen the door open and Sonja electrocuted. When the automatic fire ceased she knew what was coming, so she knelt and steadied her gun. Her right arm ached as it always did, reminding her of her battle in the mountains with the Trail. Her hip was sore. Other wounds fed her memories of other times, and that was good, it reminded her of who and what she was.

  Andy shot Sonja, the woman fell back, and as Mary came into view Rose’s finger squeezed on the trigger.

  The impact on the side of her head was shocking, knocking her out of the world. She slumped down and hit the wall, and instinct clasped her hand around her gun. A weight dropped onto her and crushed her to the floor, and it took some time to realise that she was being beaten.

  Her family watches her, silent, staring, not wanting her here. This is their place. Not hers. This is no memory, but the reality of what separates them. It is not her time.

  She gathered herself, drawing inwards before bursting up and out again, struggling to survive and prevail because that was all that mattered. It was anger that brought her around. Anger at herself for forgetting about Lip, however briefly, and now he was in and beating her, killing her. If she died, so would everyone else here.

  And Holt.

  Rose slumped, lifeless, then willed strength into every part of herself, twisting, writhing, thrashing up off the floor.

  Lip fell from where he sat astride her, tumbling to the side and striking his head on a door frame.

  Rose took a moment to orientate herself. Blood clouded her vision, and pain thrummed in from around her neck and scalp. Whatever the damage, she could still function. Right now, that was all that mattered.

  Lip came at her again, glass soap dish raised in his right hand.

  Rose swung her pistol around and deflected the blow, squeezing the trigger three times. The bullets snagged Lip’s shaggy hair but caused no injury.

  He head-butted her. She drew back at the last moment and the impact was slight, but she could smell him. An animal scent, like rotten meat and death.

  He pushed forward and bit her, grinding his teeth into her collarbone.

  Rose screamed and pressed the gun into his side, pulling the trigger, even though some subconscious awareness had already told her she was out of bullets. She used it as a club instead, battering at the back of his head until he let go. Blood splashed. She saw shreds of her skin hanging from his reddened teeth.

  A shadow fell over them and Rose knew this was it; if Mary had killed Andy then she was finished too.

  A blade flashed. Lip saw it at the last moment and turned his head, and the knife tangled in his hair. He pulled back and shook his head. His cheek opened, his ear was sliced, blood spattered across the wall, and then Lip scurried back into the bathroom like a dog, kicking the door closed.

  Rose sat up, panting, and Dom stepped over her, reaching for the knife that had dropped to the floor. From the bathroom came the sound of breaking glass.

  She snatched a magazine from her pocket and quickly reloaded the pistol, firing six shots through the bathroom door before kicking it open.

  The small room was empty. The window was smashed. Blood smeared the floor and wall.

  ‘Emma!’ Dom shouted.

  ‘Hold on to me, tight!’ Emma said, grasping Daisy’s hand. She eased around the end of the kitchen unit and glanced back along the hallway. Dom was standing above where Rose and Lip fought on the floor. He had a knife raised in his hand.

  In the living area, Andy and Mary rolled, punched, bit, kicked.

  ‘We’re going,’ she said to Daisy.

  They walked quickly towards the door, Emma remembering not to touch the handle in case the power was still on. Once outside she would run. Screw the car. As fast as she could, Daisy with her, she’d run in any direction that was away from here.

  A hand closed around her ankle and she screamed.

  Mary dragged herself closer, kicking Andy in the face as she did so, pulling herself upright.

  Emma stumbled backwards into the corner TV cabinet, Daisy with her.

  Mary advanced on her. She looked mad, blood smearing her face, sweat diluting it and dripping it down across her vest and shorts. Her hair hung free, clotted with blood. Emma didn’t know whose it was.

  Mary lunged, but tripped. Andy was behind her on the floor, reaching for her. It didn’t look as though he could see. His face was scored with deep scratch marks and one of his eyes bled profusely, his lips were puffy and ripped. But he did not stop. He crawled on hands and knees and found Mary again, dropping onto her, pinning her down with his own body weight.

  ‘Run!’ he croaked, and Emma needed no more encouragement.

  As she and Daisy burst through the front door and stepped around the dead woman splayed on the gravel, six gunshots sang out behind them. Emma screamed. But she did not fall. She smelled hot meat, shit, and sweat. The surroundings were beautiful, but around and behind her was violence that would forever mark this place.

  It would mark her,
also. And Daisy. However hard she ran now, however far, they could never fully escape.

  She had only taken one step when Daisy shouted, ‘Mummy!’

  Something smashed into Emma’s head and then she felt, and knew, no more.

  Dom ran through the living area. Andy sat against one side wall, panting heavily, his face a bloody mess. Mary was splayed on the floor. There was blood everywhere. Dom didn’t know whose it was, and he didn’t care, because Emma and Daisy were gone. He could see Sonja’s body outside the door, and trees, and gravel, but nothing else.

  Outside, the air smelled of death.

  Emma lay beside the gravelled road. He went to her, looking around for Daisy but not seeing her. Perhaps she’d run.

  But no. Daisy would have never left her mother like this.

  ‘Daisy!’ he screamed as he knelt beside his wife, and he thought he heard an answering voice in the distance. But it might have been an echo.

  Rose knelt beside him. She felt Emma’s neck with bloody hands.

  ‘She’s alive,’ she said. ‘Lip took Daisy. We have to get her back.’

  ‘Yes. Where? I can’t see—’

  Emma stirred, groaning and trying to roll onto her side. Her scalp was wet with blood, face smeared with it, and he had done this to her, to all of them.

  ‘Baby,’ he said. He reached for her face and her eyes snapped open, filled with pain. She grabbed his hand.

  ‘Daisy!’

  ‘He’ll be going for his car,’ Rose said. ‘Come on, Dom.’ She dashed around the lodge towards the Megane.

  ‘I can’t just leave you,’ Dom said to his wife.

  ‘You have to,’ Emma said. ‘I’m fine.’ She didn’t look fine. He thought she might have a fractured skull. But he knew there was no arguing. The monster had their daughter, and he had to get her back.

  ‘Car’s fucked.’ Rose reappeared beside them. ‘You have to get away from here, Emma. But first I need to know where Lip’s going. Where he hid Holt. You need to find out from Mary. Can you?’

  ‘If she’s still alive,’ Emma said.

  ‘She is. For now. But Andy’s in there with her.’ Rose grabbed Emma and heaved her to her feet. Dom helped, holding his wife. He was amazed at the strength he felt in her limbs and torso. One of her eyes seemed lazy. She spat out a tooth shard.